_Being a TRUE ACCOUNT of some of the RECENT ADVENTURES beyond the STYXof the late HIERONYMUS CARL FRIEDRICH, sometime BARON MUNCHAUSEN ofBODENWERDER, as originally reported for the SUNDAY EDITION of theGEHENNA GAZETTE by its SPECIAL INTERVIEWER the late Mr. ANANIASformerly of JERUSALEM and now first transcribed from the columns ofthat JOURNAL by_
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
Embellished with Drawings by Peter Newell
Boston: _Printed for Noyes, Platt & Company and published by them attheir 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 GeorgeH. 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 thewherefore of this collection of tales it appears to me to be desirablethat I should at the outset state my reasons for acting as the mediumbetween the spirit of the late Baron Munchausen and the readingpublic. In common with a large number of other great men in historyBaron Munchausen has suffered because he is not understood. I haveobserved with wondering surprise the steady and constant growth of theidea that Baron Munchausen was not a man of truth; that his statementsof fact were untrustworthy, and that as a realist he had no standingwhatsoever. Just how this misconception of the man's character hasarisen it would be difficult to say. Surely in his published writingshe shows that same lofty resolve to be true to life as he has seen itthat characterises the work of some of the high Apostles of Realism,who are writing of the things that will teach future generations howwe of to-day ordered our goings-on. The note of veracity in BaronMunchausen's early literary venturings rings as clear and as truecertainly as the similar note in the charming studies of Manx Realismthat have come to us of late years from the pen of Mr. CorridorWalkingstick, of Gloomster Abbey and London. We all remember the glowof satisfaction with which we read Mr. Walkingstick's great story ofthe love of the clergyman, John Stress, for the charming littleheroine, Glory Partridge. Here was something at last that rang true.The picture was painted in the boldest of colours, and, regardless ofconsequences to himself, Mr. Walkingstick dared to be real when hemight have given rein to his imagination. Mr. Walkingstick was,thereupon, lifted up by popular favour to the level of anapostle--nay, he even admitted the soft impeachment--and now as amoral teacher he is without a rival in the world of literature. Yetthe same age that accepts this man as a moral teacher, rejects BaronMunchausen, who, in different manner perhaps, presented to the worldas true and life-like a picture of the conditions of his day as thatgiven to us by Mr. Walkingstick in his deservedly popular romance,"Episcopalians I have Met." Of course, I do not claim that BaronMunchausen's stories in bulk or in specified instances, have theliterary vigour that is so marked a quality of the latter-day writer,but the point I do wish to urge is that to accept the one as averacious chronicler of his time and to reject the other as one whoindulges his pen in all sorts of grotesque vagaries, without properregard for the facts, is a great injustice to the man of other times.The question arises, _why_ is this? How has this wrong upon the worthyrealist of the eighteenth century been perpetrated? Is it anintentional or an unwitting wrong? I prefer to believe that it isbased upon ignorance of the Baron's true quality, due to the fact thathis works are rarely to be found within the reach of the public: insome cases, because of the failure of librarians to comprehend hisreal motives, his narratives are excluded from Public andSunday-School libraries; and because of their extreme age, they arenot easily again brought into vogue. I have, therefore, accepted theoffice of intermediary between the Baron and the readers of thepresent day, in order that his later work, which, while it shows to amarked degree the decadence of his literary powers, may yet serve todemonstrate to the readers of my own time how favourably he compareswith some of the literary idols of to-day, in the simple matter offidelity to fact. If these stories which follow shall serve torehabilitate Baron Munchausen as a lover and practitioner of the artsof Truth, I shall not have made the sacrifice of my time in vain. Ifthey fail of this purpose I shall still have the satisfaction ofknowing that I have tried to render a service to an honest anddefenceless man._
_Meanwhile I dedicate this volume, with sentiments of the highestregard, to that other great realist_