TYLOR, SIR EDWARD BURNETT

born Oct. 2, 1832, London died Jan. 2, 1917, Wellington, Somerset, Eng. English anthropologist regarded as the founder of cultural anthropology. His most important work, Primitive Culture (1871), influenced by Darwin's theory of biological evolution, developed the theory of an evolutionary, progressive relationship between primitive and modern cultures. Tylor was knighted in 1912. Additional reading R.R. Marett, Tylor (1936), a biography, also contains an account of Tylor's contribution to anthropology. G. Elliot Smith, Edward Burnett Tylor, in H.J. and Hugh Massingham (eds.), The Great Victorians (1932), contains a biographical essay and critical assessment, particularly of Tylor's ideas on invention and the diffusion of culture. Godfrey Lienhardt, Edward Tylor, in Timothy Raison (ed.), The Founding Fathers of Social Science (1969), is a short essay on Tylor's life and work that attempts to assess his influence in contemporary social anthropology. Anthropological Essays Presented to Edward Burnett Tylor in Honour of His 75th Birthday, Oct. 2nd 1907, with a bibliography by Barbara W. Freire Marreco (1907), is a Festschrift with essays on ethnological themes by a number of Tylor's contemporaries; the bibliography is indispensable for students of Tylor's work.