The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion
Search in google:
Most readers are familiar with the one volume version of The Golden Bough as an abridgement of the third edition, made by Frazer in 1922. The two-volume edition that was familiar to Hardy and Yeats remains a sketch. The full length third edition is Frazer’s definitive statement in which the King of the Wood appears in a radically new guise. That is the edition reprinted here. Booknews St. Martin's Press has for some time now accepted the noble mission of keeping Frazer's (1854-1941) seminal work (essentially a transhistoric, comparative anthropology of folklore, magic, and religion) before the public in the complete and original form of its third edition (originally published in London by Macmillan, 1911-1915), rather than the ubiquitous abridgments which debase both the subject and the author's magisterial command of his materials and his art. Contrary to opinion from some corners, this is no relic--in the complete form presented here, it is nothing less than a window through which the modern world can watch its own emergence--a work worthy of the company of, say, Marx and Freud. Which makes the publication on acidic paper an egregious error--depriving the account of the endurance it deserves. (RC) Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
AcknowledgementsIntroductionNote on the TextSelect BibliographyA Chronology of Sir James George FrazerBk. IThe King of the Wood1The King of the Wood92Priestly Kings223Magic and Religion264Human Gods605Departmental Kings of Nature776The Worship of Trees827The Sacred Marriage988The Kings of Rome1149The Succession to the Kingdom12210The Burden of Royalty13411The Perils of the Soul15312Taboos166Bk. IIKilling the God1The Mortality of the Gods2232The Killing of the Divine King2283Temporary Kings2544Sacrifice of the King's Son2615The Killing of the Tree-Spirit2736Adonis3007Sacred Prostitution3208The Ritual of Adonis3319Attis34610The Hanged God35311Osiris36612Feasts of All Souls37513Isis38714Mother-kin and Mother Goddesses39015Dionysus39616Demeter and Persephone40517Woman's Part in Primitive Agriculture41118The Corn-Mother and Corn-Maiden41719Lityerses43520The Corn-Spirit as an Animal45521Eating the God49822The Flesh Diet51123Killing the Divine Animal521Bk. IIIThe Scapegoat1The Transference of Evil5572Ancient Scapegoats5913Killing the God in Mexico6074The Saturnalia6305The Crucifixion of Christ666Bk. IVThe Golden Bough1Between Heaven and Earth6792The Seclusion of Girls6863Balder's Fires7064The External Soul7505Death and Resurrection7856The Golden Bough794Explanatory Notes809Index843
