The Mather library developed through several generations. Richard Mather began the family book collection, part of which descended to Increase, who made it one of seventeenth-century New England's most distinguished libraries. Building on the books acquired by his father and grandfather, Cotton Mather made the family library the greatest book collection in colonial New England. No complete record of the library's contents survives from Cotton Mather's lifetime. After his death the collection was dispersed among his descendants, but contemporary testimony, combined with Mather's own comments about the library and his vast erudition, confirm its size and importance. With Thomas Prince, Cotton Mather deserves distinction as one of colonial New England's two greatest bibliophiles.

Cotton Mather was born on 12 February 1663 to Increase and Maria Cotton Mather. Under Benjamin Thompson and Ezekiel Cheever, Mather studied at the Boston Latin School, where his fondness for languages became apparent. He read Cicero...