The Traveller's Manual of Conversation in Four Languages, English, French, German, Italian, with Vocabulary, Short Questions, etc. Stereotype Edition. Published by Karl Baedeker in Leipzig. Hardcover with flexible binding. 331 pages.

The book is undated, but we know it was published around 1881 because the advertisement inside the front cover has the date November 1881 at the bottom. We know it was published no later than 1898 because of Captain Brice's bookplate (discussed below).

Condition is nice. The seam inside the front cover is split, but the binding has held up. We see no ink names or pen/pencil notations. There is age-appropriate tanning at the margins of the pages. There is some discoloration, probably from old contact with water, affecting the center and top margins of pages 281 to the end (see photos).

This copy contains two bookplates. The first, inside the front cover, states that it is from the Private Library of Capt. J.J. Brice of the U.S. Navy in 1898. The second, on the front free endpaper, states that the book was in the library of Ellis Franklin Jones.

Captain Brice was a person of note. John J. Brice (1841 – 1912) led the United States Fish Commission as the third United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries from 1896 to 1898. Prior to his Fish Commission service, he was a United States Navy officer who saw action during the American Civil War (1861–1865). He returned to active duty in the Navy for the Spanish-American war in 1898. A detailed biography may be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Brice .

Karl Baedeker (1801-1859) descended from a long line of printers, booksellers and publishers from Essen, Germany. Baedeker's meticulous travel guides reflected many of his own ideas of what a guide should offer the traveller or reader. Baedeker aimed to free the traveller from having to look for information anywhere outside the travel guide for routes, transport, accommodation, restaurants, tipping, sights, walks and prices. His innovations included detailed information on routes, travel and accommodation.

Karl Baedeker had three sons, Ernst, Karl and Fritz and after his death each, in turn, took over the running of the firm. This guide was published under the direction of the last of the three sons, Fritz Baedeker (1844−1925). Under Fritz's management, the Baedeker company grew rapidly. In 1872, Fritz 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. Fritz also persuaded Eduard Wagner, the Baedeker cartographer in Darmstadt, to move to Leipzig and establish a new company with Ernst Debes, a talented cartographer, to supply maps for the guides.

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.

Our father collected several old Baedekers. Watch our listings for more!

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Our father was a bibliophile who collected rare books, letters, and ephemera for more than 60 years. For now and into the foreseeable future, we will be listing rare paper items from his estate.

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