Munchausen, << MUHN `chow` zuhn, >> Baron, was the name given to the narrator and central figure in an anonymous booklet of tall tales, Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. It was first published in England in 1785. The booklet sold so widely that enlarged editions began to pour from the printing presses. These used extravagant boasts. The German translation appeared in 1786. The author was an exiled German professor living in London named Rudolph Erich Raspe (1737-1794).
A real Baron Karl Friedrich Hieronymus von Münchhausen (1720-1797) was a German aristocrat and officer who served in the Russian army in two wars against the Ottoman Empire, which was based in what is now Turkey. Raspe may have known him. Münchhausen may have told some good stories, but he disapproved of the great lies the book attributed to him. Münchhausen tried in vain to escape the visitors that the publication brought to him. He died in grief at being named the world’s biggest boaster. His name is still used to describe an exaggerator or boaster.
