Rudolf Erich Raspe (1737–1794)

The original Munchausen stories, those by R.E. Raspe in 1785 comprising the book's first section (Singular Travels, Campaigns and Adventures), are wonderful tall tales of the Baron's fantastical exploits. Raspe relates these funny and fast-paced tales using Munchausen's first-person voice, unspooling the fantastical adventures in a somewhat matter-of-fact, deadpan manner with an air of subdued bewilderment, which is quite charming and effective. The second half of the book, "The Sequel to show more the Adventures of Baron Munchausen," stories written later by other authors, are no match for the original tales: not nearly as fanciful, and told by far lesser storytellers. John Carswell's exhaustive introduction provides a wealth of background material on the history of the Munchausen tales. show less

Non-stop, fast-paced ridiculous exploits of the Baron, with marvellous line-drawn illustrations by Dore. This edition is based on the 1865 edition. I wanted to read it from my curiosity around early science fiction (1785) and ideas of what it could be like to travel to the moon. Baron Munchausen climbs a bean plant and discovers a heap of chaff and chopped straw on a silvery backdrop, before falling back to earth. His second visit he arrives by way of a Hurricane that carried his sea-ship to show more a safe harbour on the moon, where he saw towns, trees, mountains, rivers, lakes - like Earth. Giants rode on three-headed giant griffins, the moon-king was at war with the sun, flies as large as sheep, weapons of horse-raddish sticks, or asparagus, with mushroom shields. Natives of Sirius visited for business and are called "creatures that cook". Moon inhabitants grow from trees, hatching from shells, have detachable heads and eyes, and disappear instead of dying.
References to Gulliver's Travels, Greek mythology, Captain Cook, the campaign against the Turks. show less

I bought this book because Neversink Library and Terry Gilliam. I haven't seen the movie yet, somehow, and thought it would be nice to read the book first. I knew almost nothing about it, and as it turns out, this is one of the rare books where I wish the afterword had been the foreword. It would have explained the differences in tone and provided a helpful context for the stories.

I did quite love many of the early stories, the ones, as it turns out, most likely to have been written by Raspe show more himself. These are the stories with the most in common with tall tales more familiar to American audiences: Pecos Bill, Babe the big blue ox, etc. Grand stories of overstatement and humor. As the book goes on, the tone becomes more satirical, more political, less good-natured, and these stories were almost certainly written by imitators wanting to glom onto the Munchausen "brand."

I did laugh quite a bit, especially in the beginning, and the illustrations are fantastic. The afterword was also very interesting. Treatment of women and black people was poor, even if the most offensive bit was intended to be a satire of slavery.

Would give the first volume 4 stars, the second 3, if I could. show less

A classic, but oddly disappointing. Indeed "the movie was better".

This is just so fast-paced that there's no room for any depth or "texture" to it. Each escapade is only a page or two, so there's hardly room for an adjective. Those that are are mostly implausible superlatives. So it's a fascinating narrative and skeleton for a tale, but there's no meat on these bones.