If you had set out to see the world, or a slice of it, in 1908, the chances
are you would have had a Baedeker guidebook in hand. That’s a situation the
heirs of the original publisher would like to replicate with the launch of a
new series of Baedeker guides.
Of all the great guidebook series, none has ever attained such heights as
Baedeker. A hundred years ago, its books were so indispensable that EM
Forster was in no way exaggerating when he had the heroine of A Room with a
View burst into tears in a Florentine church when she realised she had left
her book in her room. Without it, she had no way of knowing what was
beautiful, and what should be ignored.
Baedekers were first published in the 1820s to guide new European middle-class
travellers. John Murray’s Handbooks for Travellers also appeared about the
same time. Other series came and went, but the red-covered Baedekers went on
being essential — most notoriously in 1942, when the Nazis threatened
to bomb every three-star building in Baedeker’s Guide to Britain.
The series went into decline in the 1970s with the appearance of the books
most of us have on our shelves: Rough Guides and Cadogan, Lonely Planet,
Eyewitness, Insight, Footprint, Bradt and the rest were new guides for a new
age of travel. Baedeker tried a comeback in the 1980s in conjunction with
the AA, but failed to make an impact. Now here they are again.
This latest series might do better, although the books I have seen are far
from perfect.
I am a fan of old Baedekers, even though my 1929 Egypt guide has some lines
that make me flinch. In an entry on “Intercourse with Orientals”, Egyptians
are presented as beggars and “mere children . . . who often display a
touching tenderness”. The new book takes a more modern view, urging readers
to dress conservatively and to ask permission before taking photographs, and
explains that “poverty is no sin in Islam”. But nothing points up the shifts
of 80 years more than the time people are expected
to take to travel. The new book’s eight itineraries range from two days to a
fortnight. The old book thought that “a glimpse of the country may be
obtained in four to five weeks”. It is that sense of time, of thoroughness,
that whiff of another age, which makes the old books irresistible.
One of the largest and most annoying changes to the new series is to the
arrangement of entries. The old book followed the Nile from the
Mediterranean to the Sudan; the new presents its sights in a gazetteer. An
A-Z layout might suit book designers and looks fine in the Rome and New York
city guides, but it will not suit visitors to Egypt, especially with Luxor
divided between three entries: Luxor, Karnak and Thebes. And while
information is generally sound and well presented, there is less of it. The
old book devoted 24 pages to the Egyptian Museum, the new book covers it in
two.
But the biggest question hanging over this guidebook series concerns neither
length nor design. It has to do with the speed they can inform us of the
changes to our superfast world. Will Baedeker’s publishers stick to print,
or move to the web and mobile downloads? Because the future of Baedeker, as
with all the rest, lies in bytes as much as books.
- Twelve new Baedeker guides, including Egypt (£16.99), New York (£12.99) and
Rome (£12.99), are published this week. Old Baedekers can be found at
Bernard J Shapero (020 7493 0876, www.shapero.com),
The Travel Bookshop (020 7229 5260, www.thetravelbookshop.com)
and rare-book specialists
