Karl Baedeker name, would, in its heyday which lay ahead, become the premier and most successful travel guide publishing house in the world. Karl Baedeker died in Koblenz on October 4, 1859. He was only 57. In The New Yorker profile of the "House of Baedeker" Herbert Warren Wind wrote: "For years, he had attempted to do the work of several men, preparing the new guidebooks single-handedly and periodically revising the older ones. At length, his sturdy physical endowment had worn out under the strain." Michael Wild wrote in his article mentioned earlier: "It is a moot point whether he invented tourism
Karl Baedeker on the title pages in both languages, further increased its sales, as his brother Adolph, who had opened a bookshop of his own in Rotterdam that year, sold it in Holland and also managed its sales in England. However, very few copies of the first edition have survived, which has made it one of the rarest and most sought-after Baedeker publications of all time. The "Conversationsbuch für Reisende" ("The Traveller's Manual of Conversation"), in four languages (English, German, French and Italian) which appeared later was based on this manual and for a long time, the stereotype editions remained unrivalled in