1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Frazer, Sir James George

FRAZER, SIR JAMES GEORGE (1854-), British anthropologist, was born at Glasgow, Jan. 1 1854. Educated at Helensburgh, Glasgow University and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was elected fellow of his college in 1879 and was called to the bar. In 1907 he was elected professor of social anthropology at Liverpool. His principal work, The Golden Bough, first published in 1890 (2nd ed. 1900) and reissued with enlargements in 12 vols. under seven titles between 1907 and 1915, was an elaborate study of the Greek cults, their origins and their place in the comparative history of religion. He also published Pausanias and other Greek sketches (1900) and Sir Roger de Coverley and other literary pieces (1920). His views on the connexion between magic and mythology are explained in 19.133 and 17.305; those on folklore are described in 10.601.