The Great Floods

Sir James G. Frazer (1854-1941), the famed author of The Golden Bough, examines the prevalence of flood myths around the world to identify the folkloric origins of the widespread belief that the world was once submerged beneath the waters while only a few humans survived. Writing in the introduction to this remarkable volume, Frazer explains his goal: "My purpose is to discover how the narratives arose, and how they came to be so widespread over the earth; with the question of their truth or falsehood I am not primarily concerned, though of course it cannot be ignored in considering the problem of their origin." Frazer sought no simple answer; indeed, he concluded that flood myths have a range of origins, including both independent developments and diffusion from a common source. Today, Frazer's collection of world flood myths remains one of the most comprehensive ever assembled and a treasury of information for students of comparative mythology. About the Book The Great Flood grew out of Frazer's 1916 Huxley Lecture at the Royal Anthropological Institute and was published as the fourth chapter of Frazer's Folk-lore in the Old Testament (1918). This edition reprints the complete text of The Great Flood along with an abridged selection of the original notes.