CHALLENGE

The Golden Bough is an ethnologic study in comparative magic and religion written by Sir James George Frazer published between 1906 and 1915.

The last french translation was published in 1984. The 8 monographies are condensed in 4 volumes of about 700 to 1000 pages, all in small characters. 

However, Frazer said that he tried to make the study accessible to someone who would only be interested in a branch of the vast problem he was working on, and understandable even if the reader didn’t read the whole study. Abandoning the austere form of a scientific treaty, hoping to have formed it in a more artistic way, he was hoping to attract readers that could have been pushed away by a more strictly logical and systematic arrangement.

That is the opposite of what its last edition offers.

PROPOSITION

The project the Pocket Golden Bough aims to reflect the intention of its author.

Publishing each chapter of the eight monographies as a single book and illustrating it with original pictures or objects, the Golden Bough becomes a large collection of books you can pick and mix from following your interests. On paper or screen, and backed by a website that helps you navigate through the monographies, the study becomes much more accessible and easier to read.

On paper, a chapter fits in your pocket. And in your hand. The main text and the notes have a different color and orientation, illustrated by objects from the collection of Musée du Quai Branly.

The whole collection is also available online. On your smartphone, you laptop, your e-reader. You can read it whenever you want, wherever you want, however you want!