The Golden Bough

The greatly revised and enlarged twelve-volume third edition (1911–15) of Sir James Frazer's controversial work on classical religion.

James George Frazer (Author)

9781108047319, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 April 2012

434 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.5 cm, 0.55 kg

This work by Sir James Frazer (1854–1941) is widely considered to be one of the most important early texts in the fields of psychology and anthropology. At the same time, by applying modern methods of comparative ethnography to the classical world, and revealing the superstition and irrationality beneath the surface of the classical culture which had for so long been a model for Western civilisation, it was extremely controversial. Frazer was greatly influenced by E. B. Tylor's Primitive Culture (also reissued in this series), and by the work of the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith, to whom the first edition is dedicated. The twelve-volume third edition, reissued here, was greatly revised and enlarged, and published between 1911 and 1915; the two-volume first edition (1890) is also available in this series. Volume 2 (1911) explores different types of vegetation worship and the roles of gods.

8. Departmental kings of nature
9. The worship of trees
10. Relics of tree-worship in Modern Europe
11. The influence of the sexes on vegetation
12. The sacred marriage
13. The kings of Rome and Alba
14. The king's fire
15. The fire-drill
16. Father Jove and Mother Vesta
17. The origin of perpetual fires
18. The succession to the kingdom in Ancient Latium
19. St George and the Parilia
20. The worship of the oak
21. Dianus and Diana
Index.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]