Baedeker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Verlag Karl Baedeker is a Germany-based publisher and pioneer in the business of worldwide travel guides. The guides, often referred as simply "Baedekers" (sometimes the term is used about similar works from other publishers), contain important introductions, descriptions of buildings, of museum collections, etc., written by the best specialists, and are frequently revised in order to be up to date. For the convenience of travellers, they are in a handy format and in small print.
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[edit] History
Founded by Karl Baedeker in 1827, the company relocated in 1872 to Leipzig under his third son Fritz Baedeker, who took over control of the company following the death and disablement of his older brothers. With the widespread advent of mechanical transportation, it was Fritz who managed an explosive growth in the line of travel guides, also producing international guides. Prior to World War I, Baedeker's guides were famous enough that baedekering became an English language verb for the process of travelling a country for the purpose of writing a travel guide or travelogue about it.
[edit] World War II
In World War II, Germany launched a series of revenge attacks against English cities featured in the Baedeker Guide to Britain, known as the Baedeker raids.
The Baedeker company's premises and files perished in a December 1943 air raid, but Baedeker's great grandson revived it, restarting, in 1948, publication of tourist guides.
During the years of World War II, the Nazi government commissioned publication of several travel guides of occupied regions of Europe. Among these is a travel guide of Generalgouvernement (General Government, part of occupied Poland and Ukraine) and travel guide of Alsace (region of occupied France annexed to German Reich during World War II).
[edit] Post-World War II
The publishing house joined with the insurance company Allianz Group in 1978, and many of the guides have been called "Baedeker Allianz Travel Guides" (Baedeker Allianz Reiseführer) since then. However, as of 2001, 64 titles in English and 24 in French do not carry the Allianz logo; Prentice Hall and Macmillan have published the English titles.
[edit] Influence
For 40 years (1878-1918) the Scottish brothers James and Findlay Muirhead published the English-language Baedekers. In 1918, they established the ongoing Blue Guides as heir to the great 19th century Baedeker tradition.
[edit] Purchasing a Baedeker
Internet sites such as eBay and Abe Books regularly list old Baedeker guidebooks for sale. The guides of most historical and cultural interest span the period prior to WWII; describing Europe, the United States, Egypt, Canada, India and Russia in the context of the day.
Care must be taken when buying guides, with respect to their condition. It is suspected (though most of the Baedeker company's catalogue of published guides were destroyed in a bomb raid during World War II, so they are unable to confirm or deny) that a change in construction methods, with age, leads to rusting in binding staples, which rot pages, which results in the guides literally falling apart.
Rarer books (e.g. Russia, India, Egypt) regularly sell for quite significant sums.
[edit] Trivia
A Baedaker is mentioned in the movie A Room with a View. It is the guide Charlotte Bartlett reaches for when she is lost in the streets of Florence. It is also referenced heavily in the book.
In a passage of the novel V. set in Egypt, Thomas Pynchon frequently refers to Baedeker.
T.S. Eliot has a poem entitled "Burbank with a Baedeker; Bleistein with a Cigar."
Mina Loy's first book of poetry is titled "Lunar Baedecker" (1923). Robert McAlmon's Contact Editions press misspelled the title.
In the opening scene of the film, The List of Adrian Messenger, Baedeker's Great Britain is used as a 'door stop' in an elevator.
