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 from Bädeker with the umlaut to Baedeker around 1850. Karl Baedeker was born in Essen, then in the Kingdom of Prussia, on November 3, 1801. After his schooling in Hagen, he left home in 1817 to study humanities in Heidelberg where he also worked for a while at the leading local bookseller J.C.B. Mohr. Military service followed, after which he moved to Berlin where he worked as an assistant at Georg Andreas Reimer, one of the leading booksellers in the city, from 1823 to 1825. He then returned home to Essen and worked with his father until 1827 when he