Baron Munchausen-s absurd adventures have entertained adults and children alike for more than two centuries. First published in England in 1785, his traveller-s tales soon became as well known as those of his near contemporaries, Gulliver and Robinson Crusoe - but are a great deal funnier! The real Baron M-nchhausen was a German aristocrat whose colourful military career and sporting experiences provided ample material for the after-dinner stories for which he became notorious. One of the guests at the Baron-s table was Rudolf Erich Raspe, librarian, scientist and writer, who later, hard-up in London, turned the Baron-s astonishing life-story to good account. Raspe-s fictional Baron adopts the same tone of nonchalant exaggeration apparently characteristic of the original as he tells how he turned a wolf inside out in Russia, rode on a Turkish cannon ball, danced a hornpipe in the stomach of large fish which had swallowed him alive, mended his horse which had been severed in two by a po
