Modern German Culture Collections

Houghton Library's collection of 19th- and 20th-century German-language materials focuses on literature, music and philosophy.
Rainer Maria Rilke. Leben und Lieder. Strassburg i. E.; Leipzig: G.L. Kattentidt, Jung Deutschlands Verlag, 1894.
Houghton Library

Houghton Library's collection of 19th- and 20th-century German-language materials focuses on literature, music and philosophy.

The collection includes the papers of several notable writers, including:

Cover of novel Austerlitz depicting an individual dressed in all white
W.G. Sebald. Austerlitz. München: C. Hanser, 2001.
Houghton Library
  • Richard Beer-Hofmann
  • Bertolt Brecht
  • Heinrich Heine
  • Hugo von Hofmannsthal
  • W.G. Sebald's translator Michael Hulse
  • Thomas Mann
  • Rainer Maria Rilke
  • Stefan Zweig

The collections also include the papers of:

  • philosopher Franz Clemens Brentano
  • artists Lyonel Feininger and George Grosz
  • architect Walter Gropius
  • politician Ruth Fischer
  • musicians Rudolf Kolisch and Louis Krasner
  • sociologist Leo Lowenthal
  • music collector Hans Moldenhauer
  • critic and translator Harry Zohn

Also notable is the "My Life in Germany" collection, containing over 260 autobiographies of German individuals submitted to a 1940 essay contest.

The published works of many major German, Austrian, and Swiss writers are also included in the collection. Houghton's print collections contain complete or nearly complete collections of the works of:

Cover of German book "Die Blendung" with an individual surrounded by burning books
Elias Canetti. Die Blendung. Wien; Leipzig; Zürich: Herbert Reichner, 1936. Cover illustration by Alfred Kubin.
Houghton Library
  • Peter Altenberg
  • Ingeborg Bachmann
  • Thomas Bernhard
  • Heinrich Böll
  • Bertolt Brecht
  • Elias Canetti
  • Paul Celan
  • Richard Dehmel
  • Heimito von Doderer
  • Alfred Döblin
  • Annette von Drost-Hülshoff
  • Günter Eich
  • Hans Enzensberger
  • Lion Feuchtwanger
  • Theodor Fontane
  • Friedrich Frieherr de la Motte Fouqué
  • Max Frisch
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Günter Grass
  • Peter Handke
  • Gerhart Hauptmann
  • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
  • Heinrich Heine
  • Hermann Hesse
  • E.T.A. Hoffmann
  • Hugo von Hofmannsthal (see the Karl Jacoby collection of printed works by Hofmannsthal)
  • Friedrich Hölderlin
  • Ödön Edmund Josef von Horváth
  • Jean Paul
  • Franz Kafka
  • Karl Kraus
  • Else Lasker-Schüler
  • Siegfried Lenz
  • Heinrich Mann
  • Thomas Mann
  • Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
  • Freidrich Nietzsche
  • Rainer Maria Rilke
  • Nelly Sachs
  • August and Friedrich von Schlegel
  • Arno Schmidt
  • W.G. Sebald
  • Carl Spitteler
  • Adalbert Stifter
  • Ludwig Tieck
  • B. Traven
  • Christa Wolf
  • Stefan Zweig

For more information on the history of the collection, see James E. Walsh's “Twenty Years of German Collection-Building, 1966-1986: An Exhibition,” from the Harvard Library Bulletin.

Accessing These Materials

Information about items in this collection can be found via HOLLIS.

Contact

Houghton Reference