Volume 13, Number 10 · December 4, 1969
Confidence Men
By Denis Donoghue
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
by R.E. Raspe, illustrated by Ronald Searle, Introduction by S.J. Perelman
Pantheon Books, 139 pp., $7.95
Selected Writings of E. T. A. Hoffmann
edited, translated with an Introduction by Leonard J. Kent, by Elizabeth C. Knight, illustrated by Jacob Landau
University of Chicago, two volumes, 768 pp., $20.00
Baron Munchausen's Narrative of His Marvelous Travels and Campaigns in Russia was first published in 1785. The author, Rudolph Erich Raspe (1737-1793), had money in mind, and thought it might be brought to the pocket by a book of tall yarns. In Chapter 14 the Baron claims to be a descendant of 'the wife of Uriah, whom we all know David was intimate with,' but the claim admits a doubt. What is much clearer is Raspe's debt to Gulliver's Travels, quietly acknowledged in Chapter 17, not a minute too soon. In other respects, the Baron is not only a liar but a traveling liar. As Johnson said of another traveler, 'he carries out one lie; we know not how many he brings back.' In Turkey the Grand Turk vouches for Munchausen's veracity, a fact which the reader may take as he pleases before committing himself to accompany the famous traveler to Sicily.
Review, 2566 words
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