Rhine From Rotterdam to Constance

London: K. Baedeker; Dulau & Co., Leipsic, 1900. Fourteenth Revised Edition. 12mo in red cloth, gilt titles; 448 pp: 45 maps, 25 plans; 16 cm. Marbled textblock; green silk ribbon marker. Relevant postcard of same period and place laid in. Very good to vg(-), with mild wear to edges; ; light pencil to flyleaf else pages clean; binding tight. Limp leather.

Karl Baedeker was descended from a long line of printers, booksellers and publishers. He was the eldest of ten children of Gottschalk Diederich Bädeker (1778–1841), who had inherited the publishing house founded by his own father, Zacharias Gerhard Bädeker (1750–1800). The company also published the local newspaper. From the beginning, Baedeker realised the importance of including quality, reliable maps in his travel guides, which were black-and-white initially. To this end, he engaged the services of Eduard Wagner of Darmstadt, a specialist in cartography, and the maps he produced for Baedeker were way ahead of the times.