International folkloristics is a worldwide discipline in which scholars study various forms of folklore ranging from myth, folktale, and legend to custom and belief. Twenty classic essays, beginning with a piece by Jacob Grimm, reveal the evolving theoretical underpinnings of folkloristics from its nineteenth century origins to its academic coming-of-age in the twentieth century. Each piece is prefaced by extensive editorial introductions placing them in a historical and intellectual context. The twenty essays presented here, including several never published previously in English, will be required reading for any serious student of folklore.

Contributions by: Béla Bartók, Séamus Ó Duilearga, James George Frazer, Sigmund Freud, Kenneth S. Goldstein, Antonio Gramsci, Jacob Grimm, Reinhold Köhler, Kaarle Krohn, Wilhelm Mannhardt, Max Müller, Axel Olrik, Giuseppe Pitrè, Vladimir Propp, Géza Róheim, , Boris, , YuriSokolov, William Thoms, Arnold van Gennep, Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, W.B Yeats