Baedeker running of the firm. 1859−1861: Following the death of Karl Baedeker, his eldest son Ernst Baedeker (1833−1861) became the head of the firm. After his training as a bookseller in Braunschweig, Leipzig and Stuttgart, he had spent some time at the English publishing house "Williams & Norgate" in London. On New Year's Day, 1859, he had joined his father's publishing firm as a partner and just ten months later he was running it on his own. His tenure at the helm of the firm saw the publication of three new travel guides in 1861 viz the first Baedeker travel guide
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