The Golden Bough

London: Macmillan & Co, Limited. 1911-13.

Presentation copy to Edward Clodd. Third edition. Eleven volumes, without the Bibliography and General Index, but with a copy of volume III of the 1924 The Belief in Immortality with an ALS from Frazer to Edward Clodd. Original publisher's green cloth (although volumes 5-8 are in blue cloth). Upper cover is decorated with a mistletoe design in gilt. Spines lettered in gilt. Volume 3 (Taboo and the Perils of the Soul) has been repaired at the head of the spine (with a very slight loss of the gilt lettering). Some bumping to head of spines and slight chipping to head and foot of spine of volumes 10 and 11. Some slight marking and shelfwear. Internally very good and overall an excellent set of this vast and far-reaching study on comparative myth and religion. Few books have had so significant an influence on twentieth century culture. Wittgenstein, Freud, Jung, Eliot, Hemingway, Lawrence, Graves, Paglia and Coppola all fell under Frazer's spell.

Volume 1 (1911): The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings (Part 1). pp. xxxii. 426 [2pp adverts]. On the front pastedown is a review from The Saturday Review of the first three volumes of this edition of The Golden Bough. 
Volume 2 (1911): The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings (Part 2). pp. xii, 417 [1bl], [2pp adverts]. 
Volume 3 (1911): Taboo and the Perils of the Soul. pp. xv [ibl], 446, [2pp adverts]. Tipped in and pasted in at the beginning and end of the book are three newspaper articles about The Golden Bough. Clodd has made some notes in pen and pencil referring to a conversation with Frazer (”Frazer told me that obscurity invests the causes of imitation customs”) and to an article that he (Clodd) had written on “Pre-Animism”. 
Volume 4 (1911): The Dying God. pp. xii, 305, [1bl], [2pp adverts].  Three newspaper articles are pasted in and tipped in. 
Volume 5 (1914): Adonis, Attis, Osiris (Part 1). pp. xvii [ibl], 317 [1]. [2pp adverts]. Three newspaper articles are pasted in and tipped in. Stamp of the “Library of the Rationalist Press Association Ltd. ‘Let us reason together’”. Edward Clodd was the Chairman of the Rationalist Press Association between 1906 and 1913.
Volume 6 (1914): Adonis, Attis, Osiris (Part 2). pp. x, 321 [1bl], [2pp adverts]. On the front pastedown, a newspaper article has been pasted in. 
Volume 7 (1912): Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild (Part 1). pp. xvii [ibl], 319 [1bl]. Two newspaper articles are pasted in. Stamp of the “Library of the Rationalist Press Association Ltd. ‘Let us reason together’”. 
Volume 8 (1912): Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild (Part 2). pp. xii, 370 [1bl],  [4pp adverts]. 
Volume 9 (1913): The Scapegoat. pp. xiv, 453 [1bl],  [2pp adverts]. Three newspaper articles are pasted in.
Volume 10 (1913): Balder the Beautiful (Part 1). pp. xx, 346, [2pp adverts]. Three newspaper articles are pasted in. One of these is by Clodd himself. Stamp of the “Library of the Rationalist Press Association Ltd. ‘Let us reason together’”. 
Volume 11 (1913): Balder the Beautiful (Part 2). pp. xi [ibl], 389 [1bl] [2pp adverts]. 
In seven of the volumes there is a note “with the Author’s Compliments”. On it, Edward Clodd has signed his name. In the other four volumes, Clodd has signed his name. 

The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead. Volume III. The Belief among the Micronesians. London: Macmillan. 1924. pp. ix, [ibl], 326, [2pp adverts]. Tipped in is a note “with the author’s compliments” and tipped in on the front pastedown is a letter by Frazer to Clodd dated 5th January 1925. 

The eleven volumes of The Golden Bough and the additional, later, book were a gift from Frazer to Edward Clodd. Clodd is a fascinating and somewhat unlikely figure. He had a forty year career as a London banker but spent much of his time in Aldeburgh where he gathered around him, at celebrated Whitsun weekend parties, groups of artists, writers and intellectuals. Frazer was part of this circle but he and Clodd seem to have had a deeper friendship (they corresponded extensively over many years) forged by their shared interests in anthropology and belief systems. In the late nineteenth century, Clodd wrote on “Myths and Dreams” (1885) and on folk-lore and legend. He shared so many intellectual interests with Frazer that it is unsurprising that they should have become friends. They were both sceptical about the claims made by and for established religion. This is apparent from the fascinating letter from Frazer in the copy of  The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead. “I quite agree with you as to the tragedy of seeing multitudes daily passing behind the veil in the sure and certain hope of drawing prizes in the great lottery. We cannot follow them behind the veil, but we suspect (if I may speak for you also) that all the lots in the lottery are blanks. However, if we are right, the multitudes will not be aware of their disillusionment.”