If you are searching for travel guidebooks that were popular among people back in the day, you cannot simply ignore Baedekers Guidebooks. Back in the day, traveling was limited only to the rich and capable people. However, even those people had to face numerous challenges when traveling. On the other hand, ordinary people couldn’t even think about traveling because they were not in a position to pay for the travel guides. This is where travel guidebooks came into play.
There were numerous publishers that published travel guidebooks back in the day. Out of those publishers, Baedekers Guidebooks is holding a prominent place. When these travel guidebooks were made available in the market, ordinary people got the chance to proceed with their travel adventures. On the other hand, these guidebooks could make the life easy for rich travelers out there as well.
The increasing popularity of Baedekers Guidebooks
Wealthy people didn’t have to face any major challenges when traveling. That’s because they had enough money to pay for the expensive personal guides. These personal guides were specialists in travel destinations, and they could make all the arrangements with related to historic sites as well. When Baedekers Guidebooks came into play, people no longer had to go ahead and get the help of travel guides. That’s because all information that they wanted to proceed with travel adventures were available with the books. Hence, they just wanted to buy one of the Baedekers Guidebooks with related to the destination and go ahead with exploring them.
Traveling was a fun-filled activity that people could do during those days as well. However, only few guidebooks were in a position to provide people with practical information. Due to the same reason, travelers had to face numerous challenges when they were trying to locate the routes and hotels. Baedekers Guidebooks were in a position to fill up this gap as well. Due to the same reason, Baedekers Guidebooks received lots of positive attention.
The origins of Baedekers Guidebooks
Baedekers Guidebooks were initiated by Karl Baedeker. He was a publisher based in Germany. He was inspired by the Murrays travel guidebooks, which were quite popular during the 1820s. Due to the same reason, he wanted to come up with some better guidebooks. This is where he went ahead with the decision to publish guidebooks on his own. The very first few guidebooks published by Baedeker were promoting Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. He was able to publish a guidebook explaining the travel destinations in France during 1854, which received lots of positive attention.
Even though the popularity of Baedekers Guidebooks increased along with time, Karl was not fortunate enough to witness them. He died during 1859. This is where his son was able to take control over the business. Fritz Baedeker was the first son of Karl, and he was able to take the guidebooks to the next level along with the inspiration that he got form his father. He was able to revolutionize Baedekers Guidebooks because he started publishing the English editions of what have already been published. Along with that, he could further increase the popularity of the guidebooks. On top of that, he could also expand the reach of these guidebooks to numerous other remote destinations, such as Russia, Egypt, and the United States. During the time of Fritz, all the travel guidebooks were published along with a red color. Hence, these guidebooks were easily noticeable.
London Rare Book Collector – Shapero told us that another change that Fritz did to the Baedekers Guidebooks was that he went ahead and published books with thin paper. Therefore, some people had to experience confusions when going through them. For example, people who were going through the Baedekers Guidebooks that were published for Syria and Palestine had to encounter numerous challenges when they were going through the guidebooks under bright light. Due to the same reason, Fritz was forced to make some changes to the guidebooks as well.
The recent times of Baedekers Guidebooks
When Fritz passed away, his three sons were able to take control over Baedekers Guidebooks. By this time, the Baedekers Guidebooks were quite popular among people. Due to the same reason, there were numerous imitators to the books as well. However, no such guidebook could come closer to the accuracy of the real guidebooks that Baedekers published.
Baedekers Guidebooks had to face numerous challenges because of World War I. However, Hans Baedeker was able to guide the book publishing company in positive direction regardless of all these challenges that came on their way. In the meantime, he was able to make the guidebooks extremely popular among people in all parts of the world. For example, most American travelers preferred using these guidebooks when they were coming to Europe. It could provide them with all information that they wanted to know without a challenge.
The most collectible Baedekers Guidebooks were published before the World War I. In fact, many copies were destroyed during the time period. Due to the same reason, you don’t find a lot of them available as of now. After World War I, the publishing house of Baedekers Guidebooks was subjected to Anti-German sentiments. Therefore, the books that were published during this time were portraying more information that were relevant to the Nazis. Due to the same reason, the guidebooks that were published for England were even subjected to numerous changes during the 1920s and 1930s.
No matter what, Baedekers Guidebooks are collectibles that you can find out there in the world. They are popular among the rare book collectors out there. For example, you can see how the Baedekers Guidebooks are being sold for thousands of dollars. If you are looking forward to buying Baedekers Guidebooks for your book collection, make sure that you are purchasing a complete book. On top of that, it is worthy to check and confirm that the books come along with a dust jacket as well.
