MUNCHAUSEN, BARON. This name is famous in literary history on account of the amusingly mendacious stories known as the Adventures of Baron Munchausen. In 1785 a shilling book of 49 Pages was published in London, called Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. No copy is known to exist, but a second edition (apparently identical) was printed at Oxford early in 1786. The publisher was a certain Smith, and he then sold it to another bookseller named Kearsley, who brought out in 1786 an enlarged edition, with illustrations under the title of Gulliver Reviv'd: the Singular Travels, Cam paigns, V oyages and Sporting Adventures of Baron Munnikhouson, commonly pronounced Munchausen; as he relates them over a bottle when surrounded by his friends. Four editions rapidly suc ceeded, and a free German translation by the poet Gottfried Aug ust Burger, from the fifth edition, was printed at GOttingen in 1786. The seventh English edition (1793), is the usual text. In 1792 a Sequel appeared, dedicated to James Bruce, the African traveller, whose Travels to Discover the Nile (179o) had led to incredulity and ridicule. Munchausen increased in popularity and was translated into many languages. Continuations were pub lished, and new illustrations provided (e.g., by T. Rowlandson, 1809; A. Crowquill, 1859; A. Cruikshank, 1869; the French artist Richard, 1878; Gustave Dore, 1862, W. Strang and J. B. Clark,
1895).
The original author was Rudolf Erich Raspe (q.v.). Raspe had apparently become acquainted at Gottingen with Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von MUnchausen, of Bodenwerder in Hanover. This Freiherr von MUnchausen (172o-97) had been in the Russian service and served against the Turks, and on retiring in 176o to his estates used to amuse himself by relating extraor dinary instances of his prowess as soldier and sportsman. His stories became a byword among his circle, and Raspe, when hard up for a living in London, utilized the suggestion for his little brochure. Raspe can only be held responsible for the nucleus of the book; the additions were made by bookseller's hacks, sugges tions being taken from Baron de Tott's Memoirs (Eng. trans. 1785), the aeronautical feats of Montgolfier and Blanchard and any topical "sensations" of the moment, such as Bruce's explora tions in Africa. Munchausen, as we have it, is therefore a medley of material of all ages, from Lucian's Vera Historia and Renais sance facetiae to contemporary travels, real and imaginary.
See the introduction by T. Seccombe to Lawrence and Bullen's edition of 1895. Carl Muller-Fraureuth's Die deutschen Liigendicht ungen auf Miinchausen (1881) and Griesbach's edition of Burger's translation (189o).