Mr. MUNCHAUSEN

Being a TRUE ACCOUNT of some of the RECENT ADVENTURES beyond the STYX of the late HIERONYMUS CARL FRIEDRICH, sometime BARON MUNCHAUSEN of BODENWERDER, as originally reported for the SUNDAY EDITION of the GEHENNA GAZETTE by its SPECIAL INTERVIEWER the late Mr. ANANIAS formerly of JERUSALEM and now first transcribed from the columns of that JOURNAL by
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

Embellished with Drawings by
PETER NEWELL

BOSTON: Printed for NOYES, PLATT & COMPANY and published by them at their offices in the PIERCE Building in COPLEY Square, A.D. 1901

Copyright, 1901, by
NOYES, PLATT & COMPANY,
(Incorporated)

Entered at Stationers’ Hall

The lithographed illustrations are printed in eight colours by George H. Walker and Company, Boston

Press of
Riggs Printing and Publishing Co.
Albany, N. Y., U. S. A.

EDITOR’S APOLOGY
and
DEDICATION

In order that there may be no misunderstanding as to the why and the wherefore of this collection of tales it appears to me to be desirable that I should at the outset state my reasons for acting as the medium between the spirit of the late Baron Munchausen and the reading public. In common with a large number of other great men in history Baron Munchausen has suffered because he is not understood. I have observed with wondering surprise the steady and constant growth of the idea that Baron Munchausen was not a man of truth; that his statements of fact were untrustworthy, and that as a realist he had no standing whatsoever. Just how this misconception of the man’s character has arisen it would be difficult to say. Surely in his published writings he shows that same lofty resolve to be true to life as he has seen it that characterises the work of some of the high Apostles of Realism, who are writing of the things that will teach future generations how we of to-day ordered our goings-on. The note of veracity in Baron Munchausen’s early literary venturings rings as clear and as true