Edward Clodd

Tom Tit Tot: an Essay on Savage Philosophy in Folk-tale (Dodo Press) Edward Clodd

Edward Clodd (1840-1930) was an English banker, writer and anthropologist. He cultivated a very wide circle of literary and scientific friends, who periodically met at Whitsun gatherings at his home at Aldeburgh, Suffolk. He was an early follower of the work of Charles Darwin and had personal acquaintance with Thomas Huxley and Herbert Spencer. He wrote biographies of all three men, and worked to popularise evolution through books like The Childhood of the World (1872) and The Story of Creation: A Plain Account of Evolution (1888). He was also a keen folklorist, joining the Folklore Society from 1878, and later becoming its president. He was chairman of the Rationalist Press Association from 1906 to 1913. He was a Suffolk Secretary of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia from 1914-1916. He was a prominent member and officer of the Omar Khayyam Club or 'O. K. Club', and organized the planting of the rose from Omar Khayyam's tomb onto the grave of Edward Fitzgerald at Boulge, Suffolk, at the Centenary gathering. His works include: Myths and Dreams (1872), Tom Tit Tot: An Essay on Savage Philosophy in Folk-Tale (1898) and The Question: If a Man Die, Shall He Live Again? (1917).