Collecting Baedeker Travel Guides
Baedeker travel guides – officially “handbooks for tourists”—have so entrenched themselves that dictionaries now carry the word “Baedeker” as the generic term for a travel guide. Baedeker guides have been recognized as being authoritative, well written, and well designed, featuring superb maps and being of uniform and convenient size. They are readily identified by their standard red covers. Collectively, they constitute a graspable, ordered universe—a very large “set.” Their publication in classic form stretched from the 1830s to the beginning of World War II. They have turned out to be eminently collectible. My foray into Baedeker collecting is described below. But first, some further background about these “handbooks” may be helpful.
Karl Baedeker (1801-1859) took over his father’s publishing business in Coblenz, Germany. A handbook for parts of northern Europe was published by the British firm, John Murray, in 1836. One story is that Karl Baedeker was impressed with these red-covered Murray guidebooks brought by British tourists, and he decided to compete. The Baedeker firm published its first handbook, Rheinlande, in German in, we think, 1839. Baedeker handbooks in French date from 1846; Baedeker handbooks in English date from 1861. There were 31 different English-language series, with new editions periodically for each series.
“Pompei,” Italy: Handbook for Travellers by K. Baedeker. 2nd ed., Coblenz: Karl Baedeker, 1868-1869. Volume 3.
“Siracusa E Contorni,” Italy: Handbook for Travellers by K. Baedeker. 2nd ed., Coblenz: Karl Baedeker, 1868-1869. Volume 3.
The Baedeker firm moved their travel publishing to Leipzig in 1872. Production was interrupted during World War II, although Baedeker was commandeered into producing a special travel guide to Occupied Poland for German troops entitled Generalgouvernement. A further World War II story, perhaps apocryphal, is that the invasion of Norway came on such short notice that German military officers depended on the Baedeker for Scandinavian countries and had to round up copies in a hurry from book stores or other sources. Allied bombing destroyed the Leipzig Baedeker plant and its files, map plates, and equipment. That ended any prospects of continued production of the traditional Baedekers. The later postwar Baedekers were adapted for auto travel and represented distinctly new and different guidebooks.
The classic Baedeker handbooks established very high standards for detailed, accurate, and informative content and for fine maps. They must have served contemporary travelers well. They now provide valuable historic information about the regions and the cities they covered and inform us about travel patterns during those earlier years. While other Baedeker staff no doubt collected the information, wrote up the texts, and prepared the maps for the very early handbooks, Karl Baedeker himself is said to have sometimes traveled incognito to doublecheck a handbook’s accuracy.
My best recollection is that I started collecting Baedeker “Handbooks for Tourists” while in Britain during a sabbatical leave, probably in the 1970s. My wife and I enjoyed browsing used bookstores and occasionally taking in book fairs, and somehow Baedekers came to intrigue me. I kept at this periodically during the 1980s after retiring and picked up additional Baedekers here in the U. S. and during some further visits to Britain.
As I recall, at least the more common Baedekers could be found at reasonable prices during much of my collecting period. Condition, however, was a constant problem. Used Baedekers often reflected heavy use. The foldout maps, in particular, might have been sloppily refolded and be dog-eared around the edges. Maps consigned to pockets might have been lost. Owners sometimes marked up their guidebooks. Dust jackets were often missing or, if present, in very poor shape. So obtaining Baedekers in fine condition was a challenge and, if found, they usually sold at a premium.
It took a while to catch on to which editions were the scarce ones. I gradually located or put together lists and indications of scarcity. But I don’t believe I ever had an authoritative complete catalog providing the relative monetary values of various titles and editions.
I collected mainly English-language guides, but had some German- and French-language guides as well. I managed to obtain a few relatively scarce Baedekers including good editions for Russia and Egypt. But I don’t believe I ever owned any of the very earliest Baedekers.
One of my reliable early sources in Britain was a young dealer termed “the school boy” by fellow dealers at the London book fairs where he sold books. Indeed, during school hours his grandmother tended his booth for him, and I would sometimes buy from her. That “school boy” was Bernard Shapero who was to become a well-known London dealer and a leading specialist on Baedeker travel guides. When in 1989 I decided to give up the collection, I sold the bulk of it, quite appropriately, back to Shapero at a San Francisco International Book Fair. Recently, a small group of remaining Baedeker guides, some John Murray guides, and several early British “almanacks” made their way to The Bancroft Library.
Each collector develops and operates within his own style. My style, I’d say, was to be happy with representative examples while also building a solid backup of reference materials (histories, lists, catalogs, etc.) that provided a comprehensive grasp of the universe being collected. Lacking the money and the inclination to purchase the rarest (and most expensive) examples, I was happy to purchase what we could afford. This still permitted me to enjoy the collecting and to have the enormous satisfaction that comes with fitting one’s collected items into a meaningful gestalt.
—Donald L. Foley
Volume 123
Fall 2003
Table of Contents
Rare Pahlavi Texts Now at Bancroft
From the Director: A Bancroft Library for the 21st Century
Moving The Bancroft Library: 1950
Towards Estimating the Demand for California Wine: 1870–1920
Collecting Baedeker Travel Guides
Friends Annual Meeting: April 19, 2003
“A beautiful dream and vividly real” New Mark Twain Notebook, Letters, and Other Items
Bancroft Partners with Zazzle.com
Irving Stone’s Lust for Learning
The Bancroft Library–KQED Radio Lecture Series, 2003
Math Majors Chill with Rare Editions
