'This is a fully annotated edition of selected letters by (and in some cases to) Sir J.G. Frazer (1854-1941), the eminent Scottish anthropologist, classicist, and historian of religion. Frazer
was read by virtually everyone working in those fields in the first third of the twentieth century. His great work, The Golden Bough, offered a grand vision of humanity's mental and spiritual
evolution - from vain attempts to compel the gods to do our bidding (which Frazer called magic) through equally vain attempts to propitiate the gods through prayer and sacrifice (his
characterization of religion) to rationality and science. Frazer wrote thousands of letters to friends and colleagues, who included such prominent figures as Edmund Gosse, A.E. Housman, and
Bronislaw Malinowski. Along with H.G. Wells, Frazer was a leading voice of secularism in the English-speaking world in the first half of the last century; The Golden Bough has been in print
continuously since its publication. This generous selection of correspondence offers an unparalleled insight into the thinking of much of educated Britain and Europe at the turn of the
twentieth century, and also throws light upon the composition of The Golden Bough itself.'--Jacket.
