Franklin Library leather edition of Sir James George Fraser's "The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion," a limited edition, one of the GREATEST BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY series, illustrated with a painting by J.M.W. Turner of "The Golden Bough," published in 1982.  Bound in light red leather, the book has ivory French moire silk end leaves, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, a satin book marker, hubbed spine, gold gilding on three edges---in FINE condition.  Sir James George Fraser, who lived from 1854 – 1941, was born in Scotland.  Fraser graduated from the University of Glasgow and Trinity College, Cambridge.  Fraser's study of myth and religion became his areas of expertise. His prime sources of data were ancient histories and questionnaires mailed to missionaries and imperial officials all over the globe. His study of ancient cults, and rituals and his vision of the annual sacrifice of the Year-king included many parallels in early Christianity. Fraser compared elements of the Old Testament with early Hebrew folklore. The symbolic cycle of life, death and rebirth which Fraser divined behind myths of many peoples captivated a generation of artists and poets, notably T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Waste Land." Fraser concluded that in many lands and many races that magic has claimed to control the great forces of nature for the good of men.  He further concluded that the conception of gods as superhuman beings endowed with powers to which man possesses nothing comparable in degree has slowly evolved in the course of history.  Fraser wrote that the Roman king personated no less a deity than Jupiter himself.  And the kings of Egypt were worshipped as gods, and the routine of their daily life was regulated in every detail by precise and unvarying rules. In some parts of Western Africa two kings reign side by side, a fetish or religious king and a civil king, but the fetish king is really supreme because he controls the weather and can put a stop to everything. In ancient Egypt the god whose death and resurrection were annually celebrated with alternate sorrow and joy was Osiris, the most popular of all Egyptian deities. In ancient Rome, every year on the fourteenth of March a man clad in skins was led in procession through the streets, beaten with long white rods, and driven out of the city.  He was called Mamurius Veturius, that is, "the old Mars," and the ceremony took place on the day preceding the first full moon of the old Roman year.  Now Mars was originally not a god of war but of vegetation. 764 pages, including a lengthy index---a VERY RARE and GORGEOUS book!  I offer combined shipping.