Frazer, Sir James George, 1854–1941, Scottish classicist and anthropologist, b. Glasgow, educated at the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge. He is known especially for his masterpiece, The Golden Bough, published originally in two volumes (1890); in later editions it was enlarged to 13 volumes. A monumental study in comparative folklore, magic, and religion, it showed parallels between the rites and beliefs of early cultures and those of Christianity. The work had a great impact on the early 20th cent., its influence extending to psychology and literature. An abridged one-volume edition was published by the author in 1923. A new one-volume version, cut and annotated by T. H. Gaster, appeared in 1959 as The New Golden Bough. Frazer's other writings include Totemism and Exogamy (1910) and its supplement, Totemica (1937); The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead (3 vol., 1913–24); Folklore in the Old Testament (1919, abr. ed. 1923); and Anthologia Anthropologica, ed. by R. A. Downie (4 vol., 1938–39).

Bibliography

See studies by R. A. Downie (1940), B. Malinowski (in A Scientific Theory of Culture, 1944, repr. 1960), J. B. Vickery (1973), and R. Ackerman (1987).

Frazer, Sir James George

Sir James George Frazer, 1933.

(credit: T & R Annan & Sons, Ltd., Glasgow)

(born Jan. 1, 1854, Glasgow, Scot.—died May 7, 1941, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.) British anthropologist, folklorist, and classical scholar. Frazer attended Glasgow University and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a professor and remained the rest of his life. In The Golden Bough (1890; enlarged to 12 vols., 1911–15), Frazer examined the evolution of modes of thought from the magical to the religious and, finally, to the scientific. Although his evolutionary sequence is no longer accepted, Frazer's synthesis of the new science of cultural anthropology with traditional humanistic concerns and his lively descriptions of exotic cultural beliefs and practices had a wide influence. His other works include Totemism and Exogamy (1910) and Folk-Lore in the Old Testament (1918).