Karl Baedeker

Karl Ludwig Johannes Baedeker ( , ; 3 November 1801 – 4 October 1859) was a German publisher whose company, Baedeker, set the standard for authoritative guidebooks for tourists.

Karl Baedeker was descended from a long line of printers, booksellers and publishers. He was the eldest of ten children of Gottschalk Diederich Bädeker (1778–1841), who had inherited the publishing house founded by his own father, Zacharias Gerhard Bädeker (1750–1800). The company also published the local newspaper, the ''Essendische Zeitung'', and the family expected that Karl, too, would eventually join the firm.

Karl changed the spelling of the family name from Bädeker with the umlaut to Baedeker around 1850.

Biography

Karl Baedeker was born in Essen, then in the Kingdom of Prussia, on November 3, 1801.

After his schooling in Hagen, he left home in 1817 to study humanities in Heidelberg where he also worked for a while at the leading local bookseller J.C.B. Mohr. Military service followed, after which he moved to Berlin where he worked as an assistant at Georg Andreas Reimer, one of the leading booksellers in the city, from 1823 to 1825. He then returned home to Essen and worked with his father until 1827 when he left for Coblence (now Koblenz) to start his own bookselling and publishing business. Essen was then a small town with about 4000 inhabitants and he felt that Koblenz, which was not only larger, but was also the capital of the Prussian province of the Rhine and a hub for tourism, had far more to offer.

In 1832, Baedeker's firm acquired the publishing house of Franz Friedrich Röhling in Koblenz, which in 1828 had published a handbook for travellers by Professor Oyvind Vorland entitled ''Rheinreise von Mainz bis Cöln; ein Handbuch für Schnellreisende'' (''A Rhine Journey from Mainz to Cologne; A Handbook for Travellers on the Move''). This book provided the seeds for Baedeker's own travel guides. After Klein died and the book went out of print, he decided to publish a new edition, incorporating some of Klein's material but also added many of his own ideas into what he thought a travel guide should offer the traveller or reader. Baedeker's ultimate aim was to free the traveller from having to look for information anywhere outside the travel guide: about routes, transport, accommodation, restaurants, tipping, sights, walks and, of course, prices. In short, the lot.

While the travel guide was not something new (Baedeker emulated the style of English guide books published by John Murray), the inclusion of detailed information on routes, travel and accommodation was an innovation.

Baedeker was always generous in acknowledging the part John Murray III had played in nurturing his outlook on the future development of his guides. As a bookseller in Koblenz, he had often seen tourists enter his bookshop, either carrying a red Murray guide or looking for one. At the time, John Murray III was the leader in the field, but Baedeker was about to change that. He is often referred to as the 'father of modern tourism'.

In 1846, Baedeker introduced his famous 'star' ratings
(for sights, attractions and lodgings) in the third edition of his ''Handbuch für Reisende durch Deutschland und den Oesterreichischen Kaiserstaat'' - an idea based on the Murray guides star system. This edition was also his first 'experimental' red guide. He also decided to call his travel guides 'handbooks', following the example of John Murray III. Baedeker's early guides had tan covers, but from 1856 onwards, Murray's red bindings and gilt lettering became the familiar hallmark of all Baedeker guides as well, and the content became famous for its clarity, detail and accuracy.

Travel guides

From ''Baedeker: Ein Name wird zur Weltmarke''

Karl Baedeker's list:

1828: Rheinreise von Mainz bis Cöln; Ein Handbuch für Schnellreisende

* This was the travel guide written by Klein that Karl Baedeker inherited when he bought the firm of Röhling. Baedeker reissued the guide in 1832. In 1835 he published a revised edition but in 1839, he brought out a comprehensively revised and augmented edition, which bore little resemblance to Klein's original work. Many regard this to be the first true Baedeker which set the standards for what lay ahead.

1829: Extract from 'Rheinreise'.

1829: Voyage du Rhin de Mayence à Cologne

1829: Coblence; an extract from 'Le Rhin'.

1835: Holland

1835: Belgien

1839: Moselreise von Trier bis Koblenz mit geschichtlichen Bemerkungen

1842: Handbuch für Reisende durch Deutschland und den Oesterreichischen Kaiserstaat

1844: Schweiz

*Despite being a virtual translation of John Murray III's 1838 "Handbook for Travellers in Switzerland", this edition was Baedeker's pièce de résistance