(Rare Books & Manuscripts) The J. Montgomery Sears Collection and Library of Ferdinand Freiligrath comprises approximately 1,700 volumes of German, English, and French literature, poetry, and belles-lettres. Most of the books in the collection come from the personal library of the German romantic poet Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810-1876). In 1878, two years after his death, Freiligrath’s library was acquired in Stuttgart, Germany, by Joshua Montgomery Sears, of Boston (1854-1905).
Shortly after purchasing the library, Sears moved it to the United States. There, Sears and his wife, Sarah Choate Sears, kept the Freiligrath library in their family home at 12 Arlington Street and 1 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, slowly adding books to it over the years. The collection remained in the family after Sears' death in 1905. A portion of the collection was eventually donated to the Boston Public Library by the Sears' daughter Helen (Mrs. J.D. Cameron Bradley) in 1941.
The Sears-Freiligrath collection has been described extensively in published catalogs, articles, and via the BPL's catalog. A full auction catalog of Ferdinand Freiligrath’s library was prepared for the planned sale in 1878. In 1882, Sears published his own catalog of the library compiled by future BPL Head Librarian James Lyman Whitney. A description of the collection was also published in More Books (May, 1941, p. 179-189), opens a new window.
Those items in the collection that have so far been electronically cataloged can be retrieved in either of the online catalogs with a title search for "J. Montgomery Sears Collection and Library of Ferdinand Freiligrath (Boston Public Library)" (Rare Books & Manuscripts)