The Great Taboo

Excerpt

I desire to express my profound indebtedness, for the central mythological idea embodied in this tale, to Mr. J.G.  Frazer’s admirable and epoch-making work, “The Golden Bough,” whose main contention I have endeavored incidentally to popularize in my present story.  I wish also to express my obligations in other ways to Mr. Andrew Lang’s “Myth, Ritual, and Religion,” Mr. H.O.  Forbes’s “Naturalist’s Wanderings,” and Mr. Julian Thomas’s “Cannibals and Convicts.”  If I have omitted to mention any other author to whom I may have owed incidental hints, it will be some consolation to me to reflect that I shall at least have afforded an opportunity for legitimate sport to the amateurs of the new and popular British pastime of badger-baiting or plagiary-hunting.  It may also save critics some moments’ search if I say at once that, after careful consideration, I have been unable to discover any moral whatsoever in this humble narrative.  I venture to believe that in so enlightened an age the majority of my readers will never miss it.