Some years before my beard announced approaching manhood, or, in other words, when I was neither man nor boy, but between both, I expressed in repeated conversations a strong desire of seeing the world, from which I was discouraged by my parents, though my father had been no inconsiderable traveller himself, as will appear before I have reached the end of my singular, and, I may add, interesting adventures. A cousin, by my mother's side, took a liking to me, often said I was fine forward youth, and was much inclined to gratify my curiosity. His eloquence had more effect than mine, for my father consented to my accompanying him in a voyage to the island of Ceylon, where his uncle had resided as governor many years.

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Le célèbre baron de Münchhausen - qui a réellement existé - n'a pas seulement voyagé assis sur un boulet de canon. Il a aussi chassé un lièvre à huit pattes, monté un cheval coupé en deux, dansé la gigue écossaise dans le ventre d'un poisson, dispersé la flotte du sultan de Constantinople, chevauché au fond des mers, vécu parmi les ours polaires, voyagé sur la lune. Et, comme le baron est « l'ennemi juré des hâbleries », toutes les aventures qu'il rapporte pour le plus grand plaisir du lecteur sont rigoureusement authentiques.

Aventures et mésaventures du baron de Münchhausen

The restored, unbowdlerized text of Raspe’s slapstick travel epic featuring the classic illustrations from Strang & Clark (1895)   No one has journeyed to as many foreign lands as Baron von Munchausen. Nor, when it comes time to fire a cannon, will you find anyone more accurate. The comfort of courtly life is as natural to him as the harshest polar desert. On the subject of politics and science he has no equal. And all discussion of the moon must start and stop with the only man who has ever been there. His feats of prowess are famed the world over. Who else could leap a hedgerow with a carriage and horse on their back? No one. And then of course there are the bears. . . My god the poor bears! Written at a time when science was replacing religion, and explorers were mapping the globe, and in our own time made into an acclaimed movie by Terry Gilliam, The Travels and Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen unleashed the quintessential madman upon the Age of Enlightenment—and it remains the tallest of tall tales to this day.

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