The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen


Book Description

Baron Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen, was an actual baron living in 18th-century Hanover famous for entertaining his guests with outrageously-embellished tales of his wartime exploits—so much so that his nickname in German is Lügenbaron, or “Baron of Lies.” When Rudolph Eric Raspe, a writer and scientist living in England, heard of the Baron’s tales, he wrote his own versions centered around a fictional Baron Munchausen. While the real Baron wasn’t amused to have his name attached to a silly character famous for his bald-faced lies, Raspe’s tales became hugely popular, reprinted for hundreds of years and illustrated just as many times. These very short tales were originally intended as contemporary satire, but their outrageous silliness is still entertaining today.







The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen


Book Description

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a collection of stories about a fictional German nobleman created by the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe in his 1785 book. The protagonist is loosely based on a real baron, Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen, who fought for the Russian Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739 and, after it, became famous for telling outrageous tall tales based on his military career. The author of this book adapted them anonymously into a literary form that was doomed to become of the most famous books in the world's history.







Telling Tales


Book Description

Germany has had a profound influence on English stories for children. The Brothers Grimm, The Swiss Family Robinson and Johanna Spyri's Heidi quickly became classics but, as David Blamires clearly articulates in this volume, many other works have been fundamental in the development of English chilren's stories during the 19th Centuary and beyond. Telling Tales is the first comprehensive study of the impact of Germany on English children's books, covering the period from 1780 to the First World War. Beginning with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, moving through the classics and including many other collections of fairytales and legends (Musaus, Wilhelm Hauff, Bechstein, Brentano) Telling Tales covers a wealth of translated and adapted material in a large variety of forms, and pays detailed attention to the problems of translation and adaptation of texts for children. In addition, Telling Tales considers educational works (Campe and Salzmann), moral and religious tales (Carove, Schmid and Barth), historical tales, adventure stories and picture books (including Wilhelm Busch's Max and Moritz) together with an analysis of what British children learnt through textbooks about Germany as a country and its variegated history, particularly in times of war.




The Light in the Forest


Book Description

An adventurous story of a frontier boy raised by Indians, The Light in the Forest is a beloved American classic. When John Cameron Butler was a child, he was captured in a raid on the Pennsylvania frontier and adopted by the great warrrior Cuyloga. Renamed True Son, he came to think of himself as fully Indian. But eleven years later his tribe, the Lenni Lenape, has signed a treaty with the white men and agreed to return their captives, including fifteen-year-old True Son. Now he must go back to the family he has forgotten, whose language is no longer his, and whose ways of dress and behavior are as strange to him as the ways of the forest are to them.







The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen


Book Description

Can you keep up with Baron Munchausen's extraordinary adventures as he travels to the Moon and the Sun, rides cannon-balls, defeats armies single-handed, meets the gods, and escapes from bandits on half a horse? The stories of the legendary nobleman come to life as players battle to outdo each other's fantastic feats and amazing accomplishments. It's a role-playing story-telling game of outrageous originality and swashbuckling exaggeration, stretching the bounds of truth until they twang. How is this possible? If Baron Munchausen is involved, anything is possible. The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen contains full rules, more than two hundred adventures ready to be played, mechanics that replace dice and pencils with money and fine wine, and many insults against the inhabitants of various nations, but principally the French. This expanded edition is a facsimile of a suppressed volume originally published in 1808. It contains additional rules for playing in an Arabian style and a complete supplementary game, 'My Uncle the Baron', designed for children, the inbred and those who are very drunk. "The original edition of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen was unique and marvellous. This new edition is even better. If you are a clever person with clever friends, you will enjoy reading and playing it. Let's not consider the alternative." -Steve Jackson, creator of Munchkin "Utter brilliance in RPG form " -John Kovalic, creator of Dork Tower Nominated for Best New RPG in the 1999 Origins Awards Nominated for Best Family/Party Game in the 2009 Origins Awards Nominated for Best Writing in the 2009 ENnie Awards




Money and Mathematics


Book Description

This book follows a conversational approach in five dozen stories that provide an insight into the colorful world of financial mathematics and financial markets in a relaxed, accessible and entertaining form. The authors present various topics such as returns, real interest rates, present values, arbitrage, replication, options, swaps, the Black-Scholes formula and many more. The readers will learn how to discover, analyze, and deal with the many financial mathematical decisions the daily routine constantly demands. The book covers a wide field in terms of scope and thematic diversity. Numerous stories are inspired by the fields of deterministic financial mathematics, option valuation, portfolio optimization and actuarial mathematics. The book also contains a collection of basic concepts and formulas of financial mathematics and of probability theory. Thus, also readers new to the subject will be provided with all the necessary information to verify the calculations.




The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen


Book Description

THE SURPRISING ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN is a tall tale of majestic proportion, like the Baron himself. MUNCHAUSEN twists wildly and whimsically, playing on the reader, the characters, and Baron Munchausen himself. There's a reason why this rare classic has become a part of our language -- don't miss this one.