THE EVOLUTION OF BAEDEKER

Evening Star, Issue 19712, 12 November 1927, Page 21

THE EVOLUTION OF BAEDEKER

Time and opportunity approach for grateful tourists to celebrate with unhonnetod heads the centenary of Karl Baedeker’s first guide book. One gathers the information from a current article, from which ono surmises that it was in the first half of 1828 that Karl Baedeker, himself a jolly traveller, publishing his first improved version of I’rofeasor Klein’fi description of the llhina country, a route then popular with tourists. It bad been, the custom of Karl to make notes as he went, not only of what he saw, but of how he slept and ato. When he slept poorly at his inn, or ato with dissatisfaction, or, what was worse, did both, he recorded his displeasure with stars, thus anticipating, tho other way round, the later Baedeker method of appraising hostelries, Professor Klein, on the other-hand (says the ‘Christian Science Monitor ') had been all for the eve, a romanticist on his travels who oared little how he slept or ate. Acquiring tho rights to Professor Klein’s book, the more practical Karl edited it as a starter, and , kept on editing his production from edition to edition till there was little of the professor left and the Baedeker was established. In all seriousness, therefore, 1828 saw the beginning of a remarkable book. Tho romantic professor; had written for a comparatively small public. His successor, when lie began including such practical matters as food, lodging, and transportation, wrote for a very largo one, which has been growing ever since. Volume by volume tho guidebooks extended their field of observation-and report. No one person,, had ho a pair of seven-league boots, tho eyes of Argus, and an assimilative capacity far beyond tho ordinary, could catch so many trains," see so much of the world, and appraise the fare of so many inns, Kari had printed, in Coblenz The historiau must credit his son Fritz with moving this fount of informalities to Leipsic and organising a host of shrewd*.and' practical travellers. * But Coblenz, rather • than Leipsie, is perhaps ihe proper place for a world of appreciative tourists to' erect a status. And on the pedestal might be In*, scribed in letters cf gold tho words of tno Ecv. Sidney Smith in ono of his now almost fergotten lectures on moral philosophy: “A man is happier for life from haring mefe j once an agreeable tear,”