The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen
1785
The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen
1785
Baron Munchausen is a liar, and he wants you to know it. This 1785 classic collects the outrageous tall tales of a German nobleman who returned from military service in Russia with stories too impossible to believe: riding cannonballs across enemy lines, journeying to the moon, and famously pulling himself out of a muddy swamp by his own hair. But Raspe's genius lies in the wink behind the whopper. The book is a savage parody of the travelogues and adventure narratives flooding 18th-century Europe, each more-breathtaking-than-the-last anecdote skewering the vanity of travelers who couldn't stop embellishing. The Baron tells his stories with such earnest conviction, such theatrical indignation when skeptics doubt him, that you can't help but delight in the game. This is storytelling as performance art, a book that knows truth is merely one option among many. Nearly 250 years later, the tales still fizz with irreverent energy. You read it not for what happened, but for the sheer pleasure of watching someone spin a good one.
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“If the Baron meets with a parcel of negro ships carrying whites into slavery to work upon their plantations in a cold climate, should we therefore imagine that he intends a reflection on the present traffic in human flesh? And that, if the negroes should do so, it would be simple justice, as retaliation is the law of God! If we were to think this a reflection on any present commercial or political matter, we should be tempted to imagine, perhaps, some political ideas conveyed in every page, in every sentence of the whole. Whether such things are or are not the intentions of the Baron the reader must judge.””
— Rudolf Erich Raspe
“Some travellers are apt to advance more than is perhaps strictly true; if any of the company entertain a doubt of my veracity, I shall only say to such, I pity their want of faith, and must request they will take leave before I begin the second part of my adventures, which are as strictly founded in fact as those I have already related.””
— Rudolf Erich Raspe
“In the final round of the game, if your company has admitted women to the play, I do not recommend that you vote for your paramour, or for the member of the company who has taken your fancy. In my experience it rarely leads to success; and your fellows will notice and make fun of your noble gesture for weeks.””
— Rudolf Erich Raspe
“The Muscovites, desirous of being heard across the river announced the prices of their furs in a loud voice; but the cold was so intense that their words were frozen in the air before they could reach the opposite side. Hereupon the Poles lighted a fire in the middle of the river, which was frozen into a solid mass; and in the course of an hour the words which had been frozen up were melted, and fell gently upon the further bank, although the Muscovite traders had already gone away.””
— Rudolf Erich Raspe
