Description
Author: Rudolf Erich Raspe (Originally published anonymously)
Publisher: Porter & Coates (Philadelphia)
Year: Circa 1888 – 1894 (Undated by publisher)
Edition: Alta Edition
Format: Hardcover / Brown-orange cloth with heavy Victorian blind-stamped floral reliefs and gold-gilt spine text
Condition: Very Good +
A beautifully preserved late 19th-century Victorian printing of literature's most legendary, delightfully absurd tall tales.
The outrageous exploits of Baron Munchausen—originally compiled in 1785 by Rudolf Erich Raspe—stand as a monumental classic of satirical adventure. Narrated in a pompous first-person style, the fictionalized Baron recounts entirely impossible achievements, including riding across battlefields on a flying cannonball, traveling to the moon, and pulling himself out of a deep swamp by his own hair. Intended as a sharp parody of the embellished travelogues written by real-life explorers of the era, these stories remain an incredibly influential cornerstone of comedic literature and social satire.
This particular volume was issued between 1888 and 1894 by the historic Philadelphia house Porter & Coates as a featured selection in their highly popular Alta Edition series. A masterpiece of late-Victorian industrial book arts, it features dense, heavily embossed black blind-stamped foliage and floral vines that cascade across the front board and spine. The textured brown-orange cloth serves as a gorgeous backdrop for the bright gold-gilt title plaque embedded into the spine. Complete with a classic engraved frontispiece illustration of the Baron riding his famously bisected horse, this antique volume offers incredible visual shelf appeal for collectors of 19th-century trade bindings, tall tales, or classic literary satire.
Condition Notes
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Overall Profile: Very Good+ (VG+) condition. A remarkably clean and sound late-1800s volume that has avoided the loose hinges and heavy surface scuffing typically seen on this specific publisher's series.
- Cover & Binding: The brown cloth boards are uniform and clean, presenting bold, crisp contrast against the black floral leaf stamping. The corners and spine extremities exhibit only light, standard shelf rubbing and subtle softening, with no structural fraying to the threads.
- Spine: Firm, stable, and vertically square. The gold-gilt text boxes on the spine remain distinct and highly readable against the black floral background, showing minimal surface dulling.
- Interior: Very clean for its age. The pages are free from heavy water staining, dark thumb-creasing, or modern ink graffiti. The frontispiece illustration remains fully attached and well-aligned. Mild, uniform age-toning to the paper edges, which is entirely correct and authentic for late 19th-century wood-pulp stock.
- Boutique Preservation: Handled to our exact gallery criteria, this antique volume arrives safely housed inside a protective archival cover to permanently preserve its Victorian cloth textures and bright spine gilt.