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 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