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Sir James George Frazer  (1854-1941)

Written and compiled by George Knowles.  

Sir James George Frazer was a leading Anthropologist, Folklorist and Classical Scholar.  A respected academic by his peers and colleagues, he devoted much of his life researching the early history of mankind; he studied, wrote and theorized on the early magical thinking into religious thought.  His most famous book The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion, became an instant classic when first it was published in 1890.

James George Frazer was a Scotsman, born in Brandon Place, Glasgow in 1854. He was the eldest of four children borne by his father Daniel Frazer and his mother Katherine Frazer, nee Bogle. Katherine’s grandfather was George Bogle who is reported to have been Warren Hasting’s envoy to Tibet in 1774. His father Daniel was a wealthy middle-class Pharmacist who lead the family as devout followers of the Free Church of Scotland into whose doctrines James would be raised.

In the mid-1860s his father Daniel purchased a new property at Helensburgh on the Gareloch.  James was enthralled with his new home.  He would spend hours after school roaming the Loch.  There surrounded by mountains and forests, the loch-breeze-wind rippling his shirt and blowing through his hair, he would listen to the faintly echoing bells of the church at Helensburgh.  Until his middle year’s he would spend most of his holidays at Helensburgh, and later, he would associates these bells with the “Bells of Lake Nemi”, in his book: The Golden Bough. 

James was enrolled in Larchfield Academy, where tutored by his headmaster Alexander Mackenzie; he excelled in Latin and Greek.  He entered Glasgow University in 1869 and studied Latin under George Gilbert Ramsey, Rhetoric under John Veitch and Physics under the great Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson) originator of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

In 1874 James moved to Cambridge and began studying at Trinity Collage.  He graduated Cambridge with first-class honors in the Classics tripos in 1878, and due to a dissertation on Plato, was elected to a Title Alpha Fellowship in 1879.  Over the coming years his fellowship would be renewed three times, in 1885, 1890 and 1895. 

He next moved on to London and there entered the Middle Temple studying Law.  This he did more to appease his father who felt he was wasting his talents on academic subjects and needed a working trade so to speak.  Four years later in 1882, James was called to the bar but never took up the practice.  Instead he chose to continue his preference for Philosophy and Anthropology.  He returned to Cambridge and embarked on a sustained program of research and writing, starting first with a translation and commentary on Paesanias, a Greek travel writer of the second century.  A work he finally finished with six volumes in 1898.

One method used in his research was to send out questionnaires to all Missionaries, Doctors and Administrators throughout the empire.  He requested information on the customs, habits and beliefs of all local inhabitants, a mammoth undertaking in those years.  His comparative study of the incoming information lead to his first book: Totemism (Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh, 1887.).

Three years later in 1890 he published what would become his most celebrated work: The Golden Bough (Macmillan).  This first edition was in two volumes and became an instant classical best seller.  He would later expand this book with two increasing editions.  The second edition in 1900 was in three volumes and the third edition in 1915 had twelve volumes. 

James spent the next six years traveling extensively in Europe preparing to resume his work on Pausanias.  Starting in Greece he visited such places as, Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Ithome, Olympia, Helicon, Thebes, Aegion and Delphi before returning to Cambridge.  Back in Cambridge he met and married Lilly Grove in 1896.  Lilly was a French widow with two growing daughters; they all lived together in Cambridge, although James complained about the noise levels.  Lilly was a devoted wife and a French authority on the ethnology of the dance, she did much to promote his work in France, Germany and Italy, where later he became widely known.

In 1904 James studies Hebrew under the tutelage of Robert H. Kennett, then in 1910 he accepts a position as Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Liverpool.  James never liked Liverpool and soon became disgruntled, he disliked the noise and bustle of the large industrial city and longed for the tranquility, peace and quiet of tended parks and gardens in Cambridge.  He returned to Cambridge a year later and continued his research and writings.  In 1914 at the start of the Great World War, James was knighted and became known as “Sir James”. 

Sir James and Lady Frazer spend the war years sequester in a small flat in the Middle Temple, London to which Sir James’s nominal membership of the bar entitled him.  Lady Frazer devoted herself to guarding his peace, encouraging him to write and continue his researches.  During the post war years they traveled much of the continent together pursuing his research.  Then in 1930 while giving a speech at the annual dinner of the Royal Literary Fund, Sir James was suddenly struck down with blindness as his eyes filled with blood.

Despite this handicap, Sir James simply engaged secretaries and amanuenses to write his dictation and continued on with his work.  He maintained his unstinting out put until he died in May 1941.  Just a few hours later his devoted wife Lilly followed him from this world.  They were buried together side-by-side in St Giles’s Cemetery, Cambridge.

Final resting place of James Frazer and his wife Lilly

His book “The Golden Bough” greatly inspired the likes of Gerald B. Gardner and other early pioneers of the Wicca/ Witchcraft movement.  His depiction of Rex Nemorensis as the King of the woods and Diana as Queen of the Witches, formed the theology and basic structure of many eclectic traditions and groups practicing today.  While his books contain a storehouse of ethnographical information, academics and scholars of today while respecting his early work, now dismiss his findings and theories as belonging in the past, outdated by the current orientation of anthropology in light of new studies in Archaeology and History.

Sir James was a prolific writer through the course of his lifetime, not only of books but also as a translator of old manuscript’s from Hebrew, Latin and Greek.  Here is a chronological list of his selected works:

TOTEMISM, 1887

THE GOLDEN BOUGH, 1890 (2 vols.)

TRANSLATION OF PAUSANIAS’S: DESCRIPTION OF GREECE, 1897.

GOLDEN BOUGH, SECOND EDITION, 1900 (3 vols.)

PAUSANIAS AND OTHER GREEK SKETCHES, 1900 (reissued as Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History, 1917)

LECTURE ON THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE KINGSHIP, 1905 (reissued as The Magical Origins of Kings, 1920

ADONIS, ATTIS, OSIRIS, 1906

PSYCHE'S TASK, 1909

TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY, 1910 (4 vols.)

THE DYING GOD, 1911

THE MAGIC ART AND THE EVOLUTION OF KINGS, 1911 (2 vols.)

TABOO AND PERILS OF THE SOUL, 1911

Ed.: LETTERS OF WILLIAM COWPER, 1912

SPIRITS OF THE CORN AND OF THE WILD, 1912 (2 vols.)

THE SCAPEGOAT, 1913

BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL, 1913 (2 vols.)

GOLDEN BOUGH, 1911-1915 (12 vols. - abridged edition in 1922)

Ed.: ESSAYS OF JOSEPH ADDISON, 1915

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AND THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD, 1913-24

FOLKLORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, 1918 (3 vols.)

SIR ROGER DE COVERLY AND OTHER LITERARY PIECES, 1920

Ed. and transl.: The Library by Apollodorus, 1921 (2 vols.)

THE WORSHIP OF NATURE, 1926

THE GORGON'S HEAD AND OTHER LITERARY PIECES, 1927

Ed. and transl.: Fasti by Ovid, 1929 (5 vols.)

THE GROWTH OF PLATO'S IDEAL THEORY, 1930

GRAECIA ANTIQUA (compiled with A.W. Van Buren), 1930

MYTHS OF THE ORIGIN OF FIRE, 1930

GARNERED SHEAVES, 1931

THE FEAR OF THE DEAD IN PRIMITIVE RELIGION, 1933-36 (3 vols.)

CREATION AND EVOLUTION IN PRIMITIVE COSMOGONIES AND OTHER PIECES, 1935

AFTERMATH: A SUPPLEMENT TO THE GOLDEN BOUGH, 1936

TOTEMICA: A SUPPLEMENT TO TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY, 1937

ANTHOLOGIA ANTHROPOLOGICA, 1938-39 (4 vols.)

MAGIC AND RELIGION, 1944

Sources

Encyclopedia of Wicca & Witchcraft  - By Raven Grimassi

The Golden Bough  - By Oxford World's Classics

Websites

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi

First published on the 23rd  March 2001, 20:33:16 © George Knowles

Best wishes and Blessed Be