Editing Baedeker (section)

===Fritz Baedeker===
1869−1925: Under Fritz Baedeker (1844−1925) the company grew rapidly. In 1870, the Baedeker bookselling business was sold. In 1872, he moved the company's headquarters from [[Koblenz]] to [[Leipzig]], a major move forward, as most of the reputable major German publishing houses were located there.

He also persuaded Eduard Wagner, the Baedeker cartographer in Darmstadt, to move to [[Leipzig]] and establish a new company with Ernst Debes, a talented cartographer from "Justus Perthes" a leading cartography firm in [[Gotha]]. The new company was named "Wagner and Debes" with offices adjacent to the new Baedeker address. [[Herbert Warren Wind]], the author of ''The House of Baedeker''<ref name="herbertwarrenwind"/>
wrote:

{{blockquote|Wagner & Debes made a very important contribution to the guidebooks, providing them not only with the best maps in the world, many in color, but also with superb ground plans of palaces, churches, gardens, museums and castles, and with some extraordinary panoramas of Alpine ranges and other such two-star vistas.}}

[[File:Schweiz Karte Baedeker, 1913.jpg|thumb|right|Map of Switzerland, published in a 1913 Baedeker travel guide]]

He added:
{{blockquote|By and large, it was the sheer technical skill of the staff at Wagner & Debes that kept the Baedeker guides well ahead of their rivals in this particular aspect of publishing.}}

Michael Wild, the Baedeker [[chronicler]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Baedekeriana: An Anthology: Michael Wild: 9780956528902: Amazon.com: Books|isbn = 978-0956528902|last1 = Wild|first1 = Michael|year = 2010| publisher=Lulu.com }}</ref> refers to the Baedeker maps as ''a feast for the eye.''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.anewlookatoldbooks.com/blog/2010/11/18/book-and-magazine-collector-rip-or-long-live-cambo/|title=Book And Magazine Collector RIP; Or, Long Live CAMBO. « A New Look At Old Books|work=anewlookatoldbooks.com|access-date=2012-12-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121017023248/http://www.anewlookatoldbooks.com/blog/2010/11/18/book-and-magazine-collector-rip-or-long-live-cambo/|archive-date=2012-10-17|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The expansion was fast and furious. New editions were now printed by several Leipzig printers, but the bulk of the revised editions of pre-1872 guides continued to be printed where all Baedeker guides had been produced before—the G.D. Baedeker printing works in [[Essen]].<ref name="herbertwarrenwind"/> Fritz ventured into territory none of his predecessors had covered before, inside and outside Europe e.g. Russia, Sweden, Norway, Palestine, Syria,  Egypt, Greece, the Mediterranean, United States, Canada, India and South East Asia. Plans to publish guides on China and Japan had to be abandoned when war broke out in 1914.<ref name="herbertwarrenwind"/>  At home, the list of guides on German regions and cities continued to grow. His was the golden age of Baedeker travel guides.

Fritz also had the good fortune to have three of his four sons − Hans, Ernst and Dietrich − beside him in the firm, as editors and writers. [[Karl Baedeker (scientist)|Karl Baedeker]] III, the fourth son, entered academia and rose to become a professor of physics at the University of [[Jena]]. He was killed in action at the [[Battle of Liège]] in August 1914. It was his son Karl Friedrich who revived Verlag Karl Baedeker after the [[Second World War]].<ref name="herbertwarrenwind" />

During his reign, which lasted over 50 years, Fritz produced 73 new ''Baedekers'', as they came to be known universally. The Baedeker travel guides became so popular that ''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 victim of the [[post-war]] international geopolitical and economic conditions. Consequently, in 1920, Fritz broke with tradition and for some time thereafter, Baedeker guides to German cities and regions carried a limited amount of advertising.

Fritz Baedeker's released 39 guidebooks in German from 1872 to 1925, and 21 in English from 1872 to 1914. Twelve French titles were published between 1882 and 1910.