[German Version]

(Jan 1, 1854, Glasgow – May 8, 1941, Cambridge) was the eldest son of a pious middle-class family. After classical studies in Glasgow, in 1878 he proceeded to Cambridge, where he was to remain. In 1884 Frazer met W.R. Smith, the Scottish orientalist who had introduced the results of biblical criticism to Scotland. It was Smith who, as editor of the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, started Frazer on anthropology, ethnology, and folklore by assigning him the articles on taboo and totemism. The publication of the first edition of The Golden Bough (1890; 3 vols…