Karl Baedeker died, the "Pall Mall Gazette" described a Baedeker guidebook as being "singularly accurate", and in the English version of Jacques Offenbach's musical "La Vie parisienne" this memorable lyric rings out: "Kings and governments may err / But never Mr. Baedeker." Towards the end of his life, Baedeker told friends that he regretted not having accomplished more in his life and wondered whether his work would survive. Little did he know that the name Baedeker would one day become a synonym for a travel guide, whatever its provenance, and that Verlag Karl Baedeker, which still exists and continues to bear his
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