Baedeker "baedekering" became an English-language term for the purpose of traveling in a country to write a travel guide or travelogue about it. Fritz Baedeker became the most successful travel guide publisher of all time and turned the publishing house into the most famous and reputable publisher of travel guides in the world. In 1909, Leipzig University conferred an honorary Ph.D. (a rare honour at the time) on him at its 500th anniversary convocation. This era in its history was brought to an end by the outbreak of World War I, after which the house of Baedeker went into decline, the
Karl Baedeker gave the name of the publisher as K. BAEDEKER, the English page gave this uniquely as CHARLES BAEDEKER. Tourists in the area, and particularly those from England on their way to Switzerland, would pass through Koblenz and buy it at his bookshop. In the preface, he wrote that "he is at all times ready to afford any information to those travellers, who do him the honour to visit his establishment"." The manual turned out to be a resounding success and ran into many editions. The inclusion of Dutch material in the first edition, also unusual at the time and emphasised