Background
Karl Baedeker was born in Essen on November 3, 1801. He was the eldest of ten children. His father had a printing establishment and book-shop there, and Karl followed the same business independently in Coblenz.
Karl Baedeker was born in Essen on November 3, 1801. He was the eldest of ten children. His father had a printing establishment and book-shop there, and Karl followed the same business independently in Coblenz.
Karl Baedeker received his early education in Essen and at The Hague and in 1817 went to Heidelberg to learn the printing business.
In 1827, Baedeker started a firm at Koblenz and two years later brought out a guidebook to the town. It was in the second edition of a guide to the Rhine from Mainz to Cologne (which had appeared in 1828) that Baedeker evolved the system on which he based his series. His aim was to give the traveler the practical information necessary to enable him to dispense with paid guides. He checked the reliability of his publications by making incognito journeys and by consulting the best sources and experts. A notable feature of Baedeker’s guides was the use of stars to indicate objects and views of special interest, as well as to designate reliable hotels. By the time of his death, much of Europe had been covered by his guidebooks.
Little did he know that the name Baedeker would one day become a synonym for a travel guide, whatever its provenance, and that Verlag Karl Baedeker, which still exists and continues to bear his name, would, in its heyday which lay ahead, become the premier and most successful travel guide publishing house in the world.
Rhine Handbook
Handbook of Switzerland
Traveler's Handbook of Conversations
Revived the business in Stuttgart and began publishing a series of automobile guides to Germany and tourist guides to European cities.
