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. Volumes 7 and 8 (1912) discuss the relationship of human sacrifice to the fertility of crops.
Contents
Preface; 1. Dionysus; 2. Demeter and Persephone; 3. Magical significance of games in primitive agriculture; 4. Woman's part in primitive agriculture; 5. The Corn-Mother and the Corn-Maiden in Northern Europe; 6. The Corn-Mother in many lands; 7. Lityerses; 8. The corn-spirit as an animal; Note.
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