Skip to product information
1 of 1
Regular price £23.29 GBP
Regular price £25.99 GBP Sale price £23.29 GBP
Sale Sold out
Free UK Shipping

Freshly Printed - allow 8 days lead

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)

9781108047333, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 April 2012

326 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.9 cm, 0.41 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 4 (1911), 'The Dying God', discusses the tradition by which the priest/king must be killed by his successor.

Preface
1. The mortality of the gods
2. The killing of the divine king
3. The slaying of the king in legend
4. The supply of kings
5. Temporary kings
6. Sacrifice of the king's son
7. Succession to the soul
8. The killing of the tree-spirit
Notes
Addenda
Index.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]

View full details