I propose as my 2nd nomination
The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolf Erich Raspe.
The Baron was a real man in the british army who was posted in various places throughout the British empire in the 1700's. When he came home he apparently used to regale all his friends and neighbors with tall tales based on his travels. They seemed to become wilder and and wilder flights of fancy and lies until he becasme legend.
Fairly funny book.. In the Paul Bunyan tradition of exaggeration. In one chapter they catch a shark with 6 live birds still alive in its stomach and one of the hens is sitting on an egg that hatches, then the ships cat nurses the baby chick as her own kitten. The Baron's astounding feats included riding cannonballs, travelling to the Moon, and escaping from a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is one of the most famous book of tall tales. It is based on stories told by Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen, a retired army captain, who was noted for his exaggerated and fantastic accounts of his war adventures and hunting experiences. The German scientist and librarian Rudolf Erich Raspe produced the first, small book based on these and some other stories.
Several people jumped on the bandwagona and wrote multiple versions of his tall tales.
He became so infamous that a meantal illness was named after him, Munchausen syndrome is a psychiatric disorder in which those affected feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma in order to draw attention or sympathy to themselves.