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 Herbert Warren Wind, had spent a considerable amount of time at the contemporary Baedeker publishers in Germany, researching the history of the firm. He gave the following account, related by Gisbert von Vincke, a German Shakespearen scholar, of the famous "Milan Cathedral" story, which has acquired a legendary status of its own, because of its manifold variations: On descending from the roof, Baedeker reversed the pea-transferring process, thus ensuring that there was no error in his calculations. The number of peas multiplied by 20 plus any steps remaining had given him the correct count. A few years after Karl Baedeker