The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion: A New Abridgement From the Second and Third Editions

227 Pages·2012·7.67 MB·English

by  Sir James George Frazer & Robert Fraser

OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS
THE GOLDEN BOUGH
SIR JAMES GEORGE FRAZER was born in Glasgow in
1854 and educated at the local university and at Trinity
College, Cambridge, where he was Fellow from 1879.
Initially attracted to philosophy, he embarked in the mid-
i88os on a sustained programme of research into the early
history of mankind, and into the relationship between
ancient cultures and those of the contemporary non-Western
world. The comparative observations thus afforded gave rise
to Totemism (1887), followed by the multi-volume The
Golden Bough (189o) which became an instant classic. He
was to amplify the second of these works in two further
editions of increasing grandeur, but in the meantime turned
his mind to other matters. Pausanias's Description of Greece
(1897) was the fruit of two arduous journeys throughout the
Greek mainland, undertaken on foot or on horseback.
Totemism provided the basis for the later Totemism and
Exogamy (1910), and Frazer also wrote on fire myths and
the worship of the dead. In 1896 he married Lilly Grove, a
French authority on the ethnology of the dance. It was
largely due to her unceasing efforts that Frazer's work
became widely known in France, in Germany, and in Italy.
After periods of residence in Cambridge, London, and in
Liverpool where he was briefly professor, the Frazers
roamed the Continent in the post-war years. Deteriorating
eyesight led to his blindness in 193o, but even afterwards,
with the help of amanuenses, Frazer remained unstinting in
his output as his influence on writers and artists, as well as
on the burgeoning science of anthropology, continued to
grow. He died in May 1941, to be followed a few hours later
by his wife.
ROBERT FRASER lectures at Royal Holloway and Bedford
New College in the University of London. He has taught in
Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America as well as at the
universities of Cambridge, London, and Leeds. He is the
author of The Making of the Golden Bough: The Origins and
author of The Making of the Golden Bough: The Origins and
Growth of an Argument (1990) and edited Sir James Frazer
and the Literary Imagination: Essays in Affinity and
Influence (1990).
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OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS
SIR JAMES GEORGE FRAZER
The Golden Bough
A Study in Magic and Religion
A NEW ABRIDGEMENT
FROM THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
ROBERT FRASER