The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen

The only available hardcover edition of the fantastical story of the semi-mythical folk hero Baron Munchausen, who has delighted generations of readers all over the world. With a full-cloth, quality hardcover binding, a silk ribbon marker, and gorgeous illustrations by Gustave Dore. Baron Munchausen was a real German adventurer known for his fondness for tall tales and exaggeration. But the exploits that Rudolf Erich Raspe attributed to him in his book, which he first published in London in 1785, quite clearly drew on folklore and on Raspe's own whimsical inventiveness. The Baron's escapades include a balloon expedition to visit the King of the Moon, an encounter with the goddess Venus, a battle with the Turkish army, and an enormous sea creature who swallows him up in the South Seas.

RUDOLF ERICH RASPE (1736-1794) was a German librarian, writer, and scientist, and, according to his biographer John Carswell, "a rogue." He is best known for The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, intended originally as a political satire.