The Golden Bough
In Twelve Volumes
Also known as The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion; The golden bough; a study in comparative religion
by James George Frazer & Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
- First published:
- 19th century
- Languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian
- Content type: FictionPrimary source
"The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion" by James George Frazer is a comparative study first published in 1890. Frazer explores mythology and religion across cultures, examining fertility rites, human sacrifice, dying gods, and sacred kingship. His controversial thesis traces humanity's intellectual evolution from magic through religion to science, centered on ancient fertility cults and seasonal rituals. Drawing from the priest-kings of Lake Nemi to global mythologies, this sweeping work scandalized Victorian Britain and profoundly influenced twentieth-century literature and thought. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Provenance
Why this book is in the catalog
Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Alchemy and Hermeticism and Ritual magic and grimoires.
Controlled discovery queries from internet-archive, openlibrary-historical, project-gutenberg, and wikisource matched “Magic” and “magic”. Retained metadata contains “Magic” in the alternative title, “Magic” in the description, “Magic” in the subject metadata, and 3 additional metadata match(es).
- “Magic”· via Internet Archive
- “Magic”· via Open Library
- “magic”· via Project Gutenberg
- “Magic”· via English Wikisource
- “Magic”· in alternative title
- “Magic”· in description
Controlled discovery queries from national-library-of-scotland matched “alchemy”. Retained metadata contains “Alchemy” in the subject metadata.
- “alchemy”· via National Library of Scotland
- “Alchemy”· in subject
Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.
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Links to ISBN 002095560X; other editions may be cheaper. WorldCat shows libraries near you that hold a copy.
Editions
Open Library reports 374 editions; 7 cataloged here.
| Edition | Date | Publisher | Language | ISBN | Access | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The golden bough : a study in magic and religion HathiTrust catalog record | 1913 | — | — | — | Public view | |
a study in comparative religion Internet Archive institutional pre-1900 scan | 1890-01-01T00:00:00Z | London : Macmillan | English | — | Public digitized item | |
a study in comparative religion Internet Archive institutional pre-1900 scan | 1890-01-01T00:00:00Z | London ; New York : Macmillan and Co | English | — | Public digitized item |
Subjects
- History
- Fiction
- Philosophy
- Magic
- Religion
- Folklore
- Magie
- Anthropology
- Chemistry
- General
- Sociology
- Fiction, general
- Electronic books
- Superstition
- Mythology
- Kings and rulers
- Magia
- Rites and ceremonies
- SOCIAL SCIENCE
- Classic Literature
- Long Now Manual for Civilization
- Mythologie
- Superstitions
- History of Religion
- Mythos
- Comparative religion
- open_syllabus_project
- Non-Classifiable
- Folklore & Mythology
- Ancient Magic
- Religion (discipline)
- Mitologia
- Cultural & Social
- Religion primitive
- Godsdienst
- Philosophy & Religion
- Comparative mythology
- Naturvolk
- Religion - Theology
- Primitive Religion
Identifiers & provenance
How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.
Identifiers
- ISBN-13
- ISBN-10
- LCCN
- OCLC
- Open Library work
- Project Gutenberg
- Internet Archive
- HathiTrust
- Wikisource
- 7800
- National Library of Scotland
- 99116516455704341
Cataloged from
- HathiTrust Digital Library006811212 (opens in a new tab)
- Internet Archiveb21904455 (opens in a new tab)
- Internet Archivecu31924021569086 (opens in a new tab)
- Internet Archivegoldenboughstudy01fraz (opens in a new tab)
- Internet Archivegoldenboughstudy02fraz (opens in a new tab)
- National Library of Scotland99116516455704341 (opens in a new tab)
- Open LibraryOL1159648W (opens in a new tab)
- Project Gutenberg3623 (opens in a new tab)
- WikidataQ131597795 (opens in a new tab)
- WikidataQ651283 (opens in a new tab)
- English Wikisource7800 (opens in a new tab)
Found via
Cataloging notes
- Contributing institution: Cornell University Library
- Contributing institution: Princeton Theological Seminary Library
- Contributing institution: Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh
- Digitization sponsor: Jisc and Wellcome Library
- Digitization sponsor: MSN
- Discovery required Internet Archive search metadata to report a PDF format; the exact direct-file URL is added only after the item's file listing confirms an unrestricted PDF filename.
- Internet Archive institutional collection: americana
- Internet Archive institutional collection: europeanlibraries; medicalheritagelibrary
- Open Library reports 374 editions; this snapshot catalogs one representative edition and preserves work-level ISBN, date, and publisher aggregates.
- Original print publication date and source edition are absent from Project Gutenberg metadata.
- Scanner: Kirtas APT 2400
- Scanner: scribe4.nj.archive.org
- Scanner: scribe9.nj.archive.org
- Source-reported rights: <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/" rel="ugc nofollow">This work is available under the Creative Commons, Public Domain Mark</a>
- Source-reported rights: This work is available under the Creative Commons, Public Domain Mark
- Wikidata edition/translation work relation followed for author, date, language, subject, and identifier enrichment.
- Wikidata instance type: literary work; version, edition or translation
- Wikidata item description: 1922 abridged one volume edition of the work by J. G. Frazer
- Catalog id
- openlibrary-work:OL1159648W
- Edition coverage
- Multi source partial
- Retrieved








