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Early Dutch edition of the curious stories of 'Baron von Münchhausen'

[RASPE, Rudolph Erich].
De verrezen Gulliver; behelzende de zonderlinge reizen en avonturen van den Baron van Munchhausen, in Rusland, Ysland, Turkije, Egypte, Gibraltar, in de Kaspische, Middellandsche en Atlantische Zeeën, en door het middelpunt van den berg Etna, naar de Zuidzee, enz. enz. Benevens het verhaal zijner reis naar de Maan en de Hondstar, en de burgerlijke en staatkundige gesteldheid aldaar; met vele bijzonderheden van wezens met kokende maagden, die men hier gewoon is menschen te noemen, enz. enz. Naar den vijfden druk uit het Engelsch vertaald, en op nieuw met eenige aanteekeningen vermeerderd.

8 full-page numbered engraved plates, the first as frontispiece.

Amsterdam, Schalekamp & Van de Grampel 1827. 8vo. With the original printed wrappers. 8 full-page numbered engraved plates, the first as frontispiece. XVI, 184 pp.

Rare Dutch translation of the famous stories of Baron von Münchausen after the fifth English edition by Rudolph Erich Raspe.The Munchhausen burlesques originate from Germany. Under the title M - h -s nsche Geschichten, between 1781 and 1783 some crazy anecdotes were published in the Vade Mecum für Lustige Leute, edited by August Mylius. The reader recognized in these impossible stories the legendary boasting qualities of the German nobleman Hieronymus von Münchhausen (1720-1797), who had been a cavalry officer in Russian service and then lived on his country estate in Hannover. This character was used by Rudolph Erich Raspe (1737-1794) in order to make some money by publishing an easy bestseller.
Raspe, an Englishman of German origin who had met Von Münchhausen personally. The first edition of the fantastic stories on/by Munchausen was published at Oxford in 1786 under the title Baron Munchausen's narrative of his marvellous travels and campaigns in Russia. The book met with an enormous success and within a few weeks two more editions had to be published. In 1787 the London publisher Kearsly bought the book from Smith in Oxford, and published the fifth enlarged edition under the title Gulliver revived, or the singular Travels etc.
The present translation into Dutch is based on this 1787 English edition, and was first published in 1790. Not only the text, but also the plates were based on the English edition.
Meanwhile Münchhausen had almost immediately been brought back to Germany by the German adaptation of G.A. Bürger, already published in 1786. The German language, the atmosphere of the book, the added stories, etc. made Bürger's Münchhausen into a quite different book, a typical German swank-book. The German Münchhausen became, if possible, still more popular than the English Munchausen, and about the middle of the 19th century Dutch adaptators also turned towards the German version.

Good copy in original wrappers.

Schweizer, Holländisch, 3; Buisman 1895; Waller 1247; De Vries 108; Scheepers II, 441; Sale Cat. J.L. Beijers, Jan. 1959 (Coll. Versnel), 417; Sale Cat. Coll. Buisman 629; Buijnsters, 'Imaginaire reisverhalen', in: Ned. Lit. 18e Eeuw, 38a; cf. Cat. van Rijn 996 (Amst.-ed. of 1817).

Related Subjects: 19th Century Dutch Munchhausen

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