What is the origin of "tall tale"?

Ngrams show usage since around the right time

and the term definitively has its place in American short story, which was one of Mark Twain's playgrounds. However searching through Mark Twain's writings, gave no results so I wonder if it could have been him.

Wikipedia references points to several interesting sites; tall-tale postcards starting at 1908.

The more common expression originally was tall story. Here's an NGram showing how the two variants stacked up before the US started getting seriously attached to tall tale in the 1930s... ...and here's a snippet from the Athenaeum magazine showing that even back in 1870, we Brits recognised the metaphorical tall as American. But as other NGrams show, the US tall tale usage didn't really dominate until the 1940s.

I don't think there's anything remarkable about using "tall" to mean "exaggerated". As to why US usage massively favoured coupling it with tale rather than sticking with the established story, I think Americans just like the partial alliteration better, so it caught on.

LATER as mentioned elsewhere, I don't think it's meaningful to look for a "first use" of the tall tale variant. However, I do suspect that an important factor in its sudden rapid rise starting in the late 1920s may be the Paul Bunyan stories which became incredibly popular around then, and were invariably refered to as tall tales (the fictional character Bunyan was always depicted as a big, tall man).

Found this 1873 reference via Michael Quinion's discussion of the phrase. It's from a story called Gentle Hortense; or, the Maiden’s Leap by Emma E. H. Specht:

Here's a possible early example from The American Museum for February, 1788:

A 1752 printing of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar includes tall-tale:

Modern copies render this as:

You speak to Casca, and to such a man
That is no fleering tell-tale.

So the 1752 was probably a typo, but could the mistake have been influenced by the existence of tall-tale?

The same applies to this 1714 printing of The Life and Death of Richard III:

Perhaps "tall" comes from German toll meaning amazing, incredible or extraordinary.

ADJ.

1 [UGS.] (großartig) great [INFML]; fantastic [INFML]; (erstaunlich) amazing; (heftig, groß) enormous [RESPECT]; terrific

I fell into this looking for the origin of “tall tale”. I was pleasantly amused by the smooth flow of answers & gentle comradery. Everyone so short & precise.

I have difficulty making long stories short, or would it be making tall stories short or small?

I believe the German ‘toll’ has a clear relationship with the Bearlá na Sassenach (Saxon’s Anglish)word ‘tall’. Tall & toll are homonyms.

Central & upstate NYers say Merry Merry got merried. NYCers say Merry Mary got married (Merree mare-ee got Mah(r)reed.)

You all know that English is an Eater of Tongues, right? I believe you are all right, & together have flushed out the pheasant in the blush. Or bloomin’ Bush. It’s tail fathered out like a fan.

Tall, tell, tale are so close it is easy to see them morph back & forth into each other though because at an esoteric level they are related.

English being an obviously young, prominent & the dominant language in the world at this time.

English gobbles up words like a chicken, grain. I foresee a spreading of a form of Chinglish dialect being absorbed into our relatively young English, like all the others it has souped into its stew. However the Chinese might feel. On many levels the proliferation of English & its baby brother, American, a sign the world is indeed shrinking.

I believe you are all correct, IMHO, however I disagree about the word Telltale. A telltale is an informant, a tattletale rat. It implies someone who is a gossip or loose lipped. In the UK & Nothern Ireland they are called
Supergrass. It is supposed to be derived from ‘snake in the grass’ or traitor.

The Irish or Gaelic word for ‘tall’ is ‘ard’, meaning ‘high’ as in Ard Righ(ree) or High King. Probably the root of our word Art as the Latin is a derivative of the Celtic, an older civilization the Romans grew to conquer & absorb.

So tall & high are synonyms. There is also a term (sorry, I’m an hereditary keeper of the lore)High Tales, which indicates it is not going to be a ‘low’ tale, & possibly will be of important & intrinsic value.

High Tales are wondrous & magical. Tall tales are amusing & hopefully enjoyable. What tale are we all serving?

Pin the tail on the... Do tell. Love & Light. Gra agus Solas.