Sir James George Frazer

James Frazer was born in Glasgow on January 1st 1854, as the eldest of four children of Daniel K. Frazer, a pharmacist, and Katherine (Brown) Frazer. He was educated at Larchfield Academy, Helensburgh, and University of Glasgow and then at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a classics fellow from 1871 until his death.

Frazer also studied law and was called to the English Bar in 1879, but he never practised. His wife, Elisabeth Grove Frazier, whom he married in 1896, devoted herself to protecting the seclusion necessary for his writing and research. As a scholar Frazer started first with a translation and commentary of Pausanias, a Greek travel writer of the second century. The work was finally published in six volumes in 1898.

Frazer's interest in social anthropology was aroused by reading Edward Burnett Tylor's Primitive Culture (1871) and encouraged by his friend W. Robertson-Smith. The study of myth and religion became his areas of expertise

His best known work is the study The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion which traced the evolution of human behaviour, ancient and primitive myth, magic, religion, ritual, and taboo. The study appeared first in two volumes in 1890 and finally in 12 volumes in 1911-15. It was named after the golden bough in the sacred grove at Nemi, near Rome.

The Golden Bough stimulated a number of writers, including D.H. Lawrence and T.S. Eliot. An abridged, one-volume edition was published in 1922.

Frazer did much to popularize anthropology and made its agnostic tendencies acceptable, although his conclusions are now outdated.

Frazer was knighted in 1914. In 1931 he went blind but continued his work with the aid of assistants.

Frazer died in Cambridge on May 7, 1941