C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Baron Hieronymus Carl Friedrich von Münchhausen (1720–1797)
Münchhausen, Hieronymus Carl Friedrich von, Baron (münċh-houz’en). A notorious German braggart; born at Bodenwerder, Hanover, 1720; died there, 1797. Having served in the Russian cavalry against the Turks (1737–39), the tales he told of his exploits gave him the reputation of being “the greatest liar in Germany.” Ostensibly written out in English by Rudolph Eric Raspe, a German exile, ‘Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of his Marvelous Travels and Campaigns in Russia,’ appeared at Oxford (1785), and was translated into German by Gottfried A. Bürger the poet (1786). Since then it has often been reprinted. In reality the stories are old “yarns” of various ages. See also Raspe.