Baedekeriana  -  Dustjacket showcase  -  Cartoon

Woodblock engraving of Karl Baedeker (1801-1859). From an 1860s German magazine article about his life and work.

Note from the editor encouraging travellers to break up their Baedeker and take with them only the part they needed. A horrifying notion to the modern Baedeker collector. For such cases, Baedeker produced special covers which could be bought for 50 pfennig. This Note was found in the Baedeker "Le Nord-Ouest de la France" 1908.

... And on the left you can see such a nifty cover. The top picture shows the cover that looks like a Baedeker guide. The bottom picture shows the inside with on the left the pricelist and in the middle the strap under which one secures the section that one wants to take along. Nowadays these are pretty hard to come by.

Another note from the editor. This one warns travellers to hide their Baedeker guide at the Turkish border, to avoid problems with the Turkish censorship. The censorship of European publications was part the anti-reformist regime of Sultan Abdul-Hamid, aimed at repressing the spread of Liberal ideas such as embodied by the Young Turks. Inserted into Baedeker's "Konstantinopel und Kleinasien" 1905.

1919 Hachette publishers cinderella tries to enlist anti-German sentiment in France to promote its own guidebooks. "The Guides Bleus are French ... Don't buy the Baedeker - you would be giving money to Germany" says the little man with the Alpino hat.

Baedeker catalogue from 1926.

Baedeker "Holland" 1927. The pricelist allows us to date this edition to june 1940, one month after the German Wermacht overran the Netherlands. Judging by the excellent condition of book and dustjacket, it does not seem to have been used extensively.

Slightly more embarassing is this foreword by Reichsminister Dr.Frank in the Baedeker "Generalgouvernement" 1943. The welcom ing tone contrasts with the fact that this part of Poland housed many of the concentration camps of the Third Reich. After the war, Dr.Frank was convicted at the Nuremberg trials for his part in the Holocaust and hanged.

Rare Baedeker language guide: Kurzer Leitfaden der russischen Sprache für den Reisegebrauch nebst Redewendungen und Wörterverzeichnis, Leipzig 1903. It was published as a complement to the Baedeker Russland guide.