The first important writer to write about Wiesbaden was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In his essay "Kunst und Altertum am Rhein und Main" (1815), he gives a precise description of Wiesbaden's development into the capital and spa town following his stays at the spa in 1814/15.

Wilhelm Heinrich von Riehl described his childhood in Biebrich in the novella "Abendfrieden" (1867). In "Das Theaterkind. Eine Memoiren-Novelle aus der Gegenwart" (1867), he reflected on his experiences in the theater commission of 1848/49. In "Der Märzminister" (1873), he portrayed August Hergenhahn. In "Seines Vaters Sohn" (1879), Biebrich becomes the setting for a smuggling story. Hans Grimm published several Wiesbaden novellas and his memoirs "Leben in Erwartung. My youth" (1952). Alfons Paquet wrote the poem "So sagt ein Sohn der Stadt" (1906) and the essay "Wiesbaden, ein Lebensbild" (1927). Wieland Herzfelde described in "Immergrün. Merkwürdige Erlebnisse und Erfahrungen eines fröhlichen Waisenknaben" (1968), Wieland Herzfelde described the various middle-class families in which he lived from 1905-14. In "Die Rheingauer Jahre" (1949), Karl Korn outlines the contrast between the city of the civil servants who moved here and the Rheingau and describes his childhood and youth in Goebenstraße in "Lange Lehrzeit" (1975).

In addition to these reports from the time of the German Empire and the war, "Bühne und Welt. Erlebnisse und Betrachtungen eines Theaterleiters" (1948) by Carl Hagemann gives a vivid picture of Wiesbaden in the 1920s.

Walter Kempowski (1929-2007) processed the post-war period of 1947/48 in "Uns geht's ja noch gold" (1972). More specific to Wiesbaden than these autobiographical texts are novels and short stories set in the fashionable spa town of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The literary level varies. Colportage novels such as "The Secrets of Wiesbaden" by Heinrich von Hausen (1862) and "The Betrothal of Wiesbaden" by August Niemann (1890) are based on Eugène Sues' (1804-1857) "The Secrets of Paris" and derive moments of suspense from gambling.

The casino also makes Wiesbaden the setting for a work of world literature, Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky's short novel "The Gambler" (1866). Another Russian classic, Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), explicitly mentions Wiesbaden in his novella "Spring Tides" (1871) and reflects the characters of the female protagonists in the contrast between petty-bourgeois Frankfurt and sophisticated Wiesbaden. The Dutch writer Eduard Douwes Dekker (Multatuli) processed his impressions of Wiesbaden in the novel "Millionen-Studien" (1872).

A seaside resort is a suitable literary setting for bringing about encounters or initiating marriages. Wiesbaden episodes based on this theme can be found in the novels "Verfalltag" (1911) by Gerhard Oukama Knoop (1861-1913), "Jenseits" (1917) by John Galsworthy (1867-1933) and in the novella "Er will sie kennenlernen" (1887) by Hermann Sudermann (1857-1928).

Heinrich Mann used Wiesbaden as a backdrop in his novella "Before a Photograph", published from his estate. His brother Thomas Mann was unfamiliar with Wiesbaden and the Rheingau when he wrote the first chapters of his "Confessions of Felix Krull the Impostor" (1922/1954) in 1909-13. Felix Krull, the son of an Eltville sparkling wine manufacturer, has his disillusioning theater experience in Wiesbaden and has to undergo a physical examination here. The light novel "Friedel halb-süß" (1910) by Fedor von Zobeltitz (1857-1934) is also about Rheingau sparkling wine producers. Liesbet Dill 's novels also focus on families who live here permanently: "Die Herweghs" (1905), "Suse" (1906), "Eine von zu vielen" (1907).

The spa town theme became less interesting after 1918, but is still taken up in historical stories today. In 1938, for example, Friedrich Michael varied the themes of gambling and the marriage market in a chapter of his novel "Silvia und die Freier" (Silvia and the Suitors, 1941), set in 1865. Hans Dieter Schreeb wrote about the life of his grandmother in the novel "Hotel Petersburger Hof" (1996). Schreeb is interested in the little people, servants and social democracy. In "Sherlock Holmes: The Wiesbaden Cases" (2009), Karsten Eichner has the famous London detective investigate in the cosmopolitan spa town.

Contemporary literature also focuses on Wiesbaden today. In Katja Behrens' novel "Die dreizehnte Fee" (1983), grandmother, mother and daughter live in an attic apartment in Waldstraße. In "Hotel Hölle, guten Tag" (1987), Eva Demski describes the conversion of a villa into a hotel and the discovery that the house was used as a torture cellar during the Nazi era. In "Agents" (1989), Hanns-Josef Ortheil made Wiesbaden the prototypical place for lifestyle hustle and bustle around 1985. Martin Walser's novels "The Defense of Childhood" (1991) and "Fink's War" (1996) depict the official milieu in the state capital.

As the headquarters of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Wiesbaden was important for the history of the Red Army Faction (RAF). Friedrich Christian Delius used this reference in his novel "Himmelfahrt eines Staatsfeindes" (1992) as an opportunity to use a fictitious state funeral in Wiesbaden for the terrorists who died in Stammheim in 1977 as a satirical hook for an examination of the RAF. The RAF terrorist Wolfgang Grams (*1953), who died in a shoot-out with the police at Bad Kleinen station in 1993, came from Wiesbaden. Christoph Hein used his case as a model for his novel "In seiner frühen Kindheit ein Garten" (2005). Author Frank Witzel, who was born in Wiesbaden in 1955, set his novel "Die Erfindung der Rote Armee Fraktion durch einen manisch-depressiven Teenager im Sommer 1969" (German Book Prize 2015) in Wiesbaden. The focus is on a youth clique from Biebrich that calls itself the "Red Army Faction", even before the terrorist group gave itself this name in 1970.

The now fashionable genre of "regional crime" has also produced novels set in Wiesbaden, which - as is usually the case with this genre - are mainly of local interest.