Pierer boldly stated that it was a successful anonymous satire upon the English government of the day, while Meusel with equal temerity affirmed in his "Lexikon" that the book was a translation of the "well-known Munchausen lies" executed from a (non-existent) German original by Rudolph Erich Raspe.

A writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1856 calls the book the joint production of Buerger and Raspe.
Of all the conjectures, of which these are but a selection, the most accurate from a German point of view is that the book was the work of Buerger, who was the first to dress the Travels in a German garb, and was for a long time almost universally credited with the sole proprietorship.

Buerger himself appears neither to have claimed nor disclaimed the distinction.

There is, however, no doubt whatever that the book first appeared in English in 1785, and that Buerger's German version did not see the light until 1786.

The first German edition (though in reality printed at Goettingen) bore the imprint London, and was stated to be derived from an English source; but this was, reasonably enough, held to be merely a measure of precaution in case the actual Baron Munchausen (who was a well-known personage in Goettingen) should be stupid enough to feel aggrieved at being made the butt of a gross caricature.