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Travels with Baedeker
end of the popular spectrum was distinguished by the competition of two guides,
one of which was Thomas Cook’s Handbook on Switzerland, first published in
1874. This had no pretentions other than to describe the beaten track, and even
then the sights it included were highly selective. In its appeal to popular instincts,
its prose was marked by a more jocular style, introducing one resort thus:
“Interlacken [sic] has been described as the Leamington, or Cheltenham, or
Harrogate of Switzerland.” Mocking the whey cure that had been the town’s
original attraction, the guide recommended, with unfailing drollery, the “tour-cure”
instead, which consisted of the purchase of Cook’s tourist ticket. Cook’s handbook
did not contain a description of the town’s actual sights, but was nevertheless
content to convey to the reader an altogether dismissive assessment of Interlaken. 23
The second consciously down-market popular guidebook was Henry Gaze’s Switzerland:
How to See it for Ten Guineas, available for just one shilling (compared to
nine shillings for Murray’s Swiss guide in the 1860s). It was part of a series covering
the most popular English tourist destinations: Paris, northern Italy, and the Low
Countries. As indicated in its title, the guidebook’s emphasis was on price, its main
function being the design of an itinerary whereby the sights of Switzerland could
be experienced for the allotted sum. 24
The proliferation of guidebooks to cater for the growing British tourist market
confirmed rather than challenged the preeminence of Murray’s and Baedeker’s
guides. John Ball was happy to copy verbatim passages from Murray into his own
guide. Henry Gaze went further, recommending, for a “full enjoyment” of the
scenes passed by, the Murray as an “invaluable companion”; to save space, at
each point of interest Gaze’s book referred to the relevant page number in the
Murray for more detailed information. 25 Baedeker, in turn, was championed by
Thomas Cook, whose guidebook highlighted its indebtedness to Baedeker through
extensive quotations, without shying away from copying, without acknowledgment,
Murray’s extensive use of Byron in the Oberland or at Chillon. 26 Directly
and indirectly, Baedeker’s and Murray’s handbooks maintained and extended a
unique preeminence in the increasingly diverse market for guidebooks.
The spread and relative uniformity of travel guidebooks was an important
precondition for the cultural impact of the Murray and the Baedeker, but this says
little about the actual nature of their influence. Famously, when Lucy Honeychurch
and her cousin Charlotte set out to discover the sights of Florence in E.M. Forster’s
A Room with a View, Lucy needed the Baedeker to tell her what was “really
beautiful” in Santa Croce. On his first trip to Venice in 1869, it was perfectly
natural for Henry James to rely on the Murray, and he decided to lodge in the first
place recommended by the guidebook. 27 Beyond such illustrious examples from
the literary world, up to now the close association between guidebook and
readership has been more assumed than proven. This is surprising, for the wealth
of published and unpublished travelers’ journals of the period offers a genuine
insight into the precise ways in which guidebook and audience interacted.
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