Baedeker

Baedeker, Karl, the founder of the well-known series of Continental guides that now rival the publications for which John Murray once had a monopoly, was born at Essen in 1801. His father was engaged in the printing trade, and the son following in his footsteps established himself at Coblentz in 1827. There he produced some ten years later his Guide to the Rhine, giving, as the result of personal observation, details of practical value to travellers of modest means. From this beginning started the enterprise that has now dealt with almost every country in Europe, and found expression in the principal European languages. Karl Baedeker died in 1859.