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Parent company | Somerset Books |
---|---|
Founded | 1918 |
Founders | James and Findlay Muirhead |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Headquarters location | London |
Distribution | Bertrams (UK) W. W. Norton & Company (US) Penguin Books (India) [1] |
Publication types | Books |
Nonfiction topics | Travel guides |
Official website | www |
The Blue Guides are a series of detailed and authoritative travel guidebooks focused on art, architecture, and (where relevant) archaeology along with the history and context necessary to understand them. A modicum of practical travel information, with recommended restaurants and hotels, is also generally included.
The first Blue Guide – London and its Environs – was published in 1918 by the Scottish brothers James and Findlay Muirhead. The Muirheads had for many years been the English-language editors of the famous German Baedeker series. When they also acquired the rights to John Murray III’s famous travel “handbooks” they established the Blue Guides as heir to the great 19th century guide book tradition.
In 1828, Karl Baedeker (1801–59) published his first guidebook, Rheinreise von Mainz bis Cöln and in 1836 John Murray III’s (1808–92) first Handbook was released (Handbook for Travellers on the Continent). The first Baedeker in English, The Rhine (1861), was published jointly by Baedeker and Murray. These handbooks were to become the standard for English travellers for the remainder of the 19th Century.
James Muirhead (1853–1934) began working for Baedeker in 1878, preparing a Handbook for Travellers to London. Findlay Muirhead (1860–1935), graduate of the University of Edinburgh, left his studies at Leipzig in 1887 to join his brother at Baedeker. For almost the next 30 years the brothers were responsible for all English language Baedekers, including compiling guides to Britain, the US and Canada. Following the outbreak of World War I, the Muirhead brothers found themselves out of a job. They acquired the rights to Murray’s Handbooks in 1915 from the cartographical publisher Edward Stanford, who had bought them 14 years earlier from John Murray IV. In the same year they established their company, Muirhead’s Guide-books Limited.
A 1917 agreement with French publisher Hachette allowed co-publication in English and French of guidebooks under the names Blue Guides and Guides Bleus, respectively. Hachette’s existing Guides Joannes had blue covers, while Baedeker’s guides had red covers. The first Blue Guide, Blue Guide London and its Environs, was published in 1918. Two years later, Hachette published Guide Bleu Londres et ses Environs. The Hachette relationship with the Blue Guides ended in 1933.
The Blue Guides were acquired by Ernest Benn Limited in 1931. (Litellus) Russell Muirhead (1896-1976), Findlay’s son, became the series editor in 1934. He retired in 1963, remaining a consulting editor until 1965 when the Muirhead family’s connection with the series ended.
In 1963, Stuart Rossiter (1923-82) was appointed editor and in 1967 the first of Rossiter’s “scrupulously edited guides, compiled for the independent educated traveller wanting to avoid the monotony of international uniformity” (Blue Guide Greece) was compiled by Rossiter himself and published. Blue Guide Rome and Environs, by Alta Macadam, was released in 1971. Her Italy titles thereafter become some of the best selling Blue Guides and included Sicily (1975), Northern Italy (1978), Florence (1982), Venice (1980), Tuscany (1993), and Umbria (1993), all frequently updated and re-issued. Other key Blue Guide authors are and have been Ian Robertson (Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, Cyprus, France, & Paris and Versailles), John Tomes (Scotland, Wales), Ian Ousby (England), Paul Blanchard (Italy).
In 1982, W.W. Norton of New York became the United States co-publisher, selling all Blue Guides in that country. Two years later, the Blue Guides were acquired by A&C Black (Publishers) Limited, themselves later acquired by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. In 2004, Somerset Books, a small, London-based, family-owned travel publisher known for its Visible Cities guides, acquired the Blue Guides. A year later, they published the first new title under the new ownership, Blue Guide Northern Italy.
Verlag Karl Baedeker, founded by Karl Baedeker on 1 July 1827, is a German publisher and pioneer in the business of worldwide travel guides. The guides, often referred to simply as "Baedekers", contain, among other things, maps and introductions; information about routes and travel facilities; and descriptions of noteworthy buildings, sights, attractions and museums, written by specialists.
Karl Ludwig Johannes Baedeker was a German publisher whose company, Baedeker, set the standard for authoritative guidebooks for tourists.
John Murray is a Scottish publisher, known for the authors it has published in its long history including Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, Edward Whymper, Thomas Robert Malthus, David Ricardo, and Charles Darwin. Since 2004, it has been owned by conglomerate Lagardère under the Hachette UK brand.
Footprint Travel Guides is the imprint of Footprint Handbooks Ltd, a publisher of guidebooks based in Bath in the United Kingdom. Particularly noted for their coverage of Latin America, their South American Handbook, first published in 1924, is in its 90th edition and is updated annually. The company now publish more than 200 titles covering many destinations. Since 2008, all handbook guides are published in lightweight hardback.
A guide book or travel guide is "a book of information about a place designed for the use of visitors or tourists". It will usually include information about sights, accommodation, restaurants, transportation, and activities. Maps of varying detail and historical and cultural information are often included. Different kinds of guide books exist, focusing on different aspects of travel, from adventure travel to relaxation, or aimed at travelers with different incomes, or focusing on sexual orientation or types of diet.
A Handbook for Travellers in Spain is an 1845 work of travel literature by English writer Richard Ford. It has been described as a defining moment in the genre.
"My postillion has been struck by lightning", "our postillion has been struck by lightning", and other variations on the same pattern, are often given as examples of the ridiculous phrases supposed to have been found in phrase books or language instruction in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The word postillion may occur in its alternative spelling postilion.
Arthur John Strutt (1819–1888), was a British painter, engraver, writer, traveller and archaeologist.
Percival Stuart Bryce Rossiter was a renowned British philatelist and postal historian who wrote extensively about British postal history and postage stamps of British colonies in Africa and was involved in numerous philatelic institutions. In his Will he created The Stuart Rossiter Trust which has become a leading publisher of books on postal history.
The Guide Bleu is a series of French-language travel guides published by Hachette Livre, which started in 1841 as the Guide Joanne.
The South American Handbook is a travel guide to South America, published in the United Kingdom by Footprint Books. It is the longest-running travel guide in the English language. In 2010 it was chosen as the Best South American Handbook by Sounds and Colours.
Glacier Montanvert was the common name in the 18th century for a portion of the Alps glacier, now known as Mer de Glace, on the northern slopes of the Mont Blanc massif. Alternative spellings of Montanvert include Montainvert and Montvers. The Glacier Montanvert was a popular tourist destination of European travellers and is referenced in numerous travel writings and novels of the time.
Bradshaw's was a series of railway timetables and travel guide books published by W.J. Adams and later Henry Blacklock, both of London. They are named after founder George Bradshaw, who produced his first timetable in October 1839. Although Bradshaw died in 1853, the range of titles bearing his name continued to expand for the remainder of the 19th and early part of the 20th century, covering at various times Continental Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand, as well as parts of the Middle-East. They survived until May 1961, when the final monthly edition of the British guide was produced. The British and Continental guides were referred to extensively by presenter Michael Portillo in his multiple television series.
Murray's Handbooks for Travellers were travel guide books published in London by John Murray beginning in 1836. The series covered tourist destinations in Europe and parts of Asia and northern Africa. According to scholar James Buzard, the Murray style "exemplified the exhaustive rational planning that was as much an ideal of the emerging tourist industry as it was of British commercial and industrial organization generally." The guidebooks became popular enough to appear in works of fiction such as Charles Lever's Dodd Family Abroad. After 1915 the series continued as the Blue Guides and the familiar gold gilted red Murrays Handbooks published by John Murray London including the long running Handbook to India, Pakistan, Ceylon & Burma which concluded with the 21st edition in 1968 before changing from the original format of 1836 to a more modern paperback edition of 1975.
Claudius Madrolle was a French explorer in Africa and Asia and editor of travel guides who specialized in East Asia. Publishers included Comité de l'Asie Française, Hachette and the Société d'Éditions Géographiques, Maritimes et Coloniales. In 1902, thanks to this young and wealthy French explorer, was published the first of a serie of travel guides to the Far East. From the beginning, he designed his project to match the spirit of well-known guides such as Baedeker, Joanne or Murray. A collection indeed, as a total of 70 guides, 11 of them in English, were published between 1902 and 1939. This period, during which Far East countries were slowly embracing tourism, was also a period of considerable political and social turmoil. For Claudius Madrolle, these changes added serious hurdles to the completion of his project.
Cook's Tourists' Handbooks were a series of travel guide books for tourists published in the 19th-20th centuries by Thomas Cook & Son of London. The firm's founder, Thomas Cook, produced his first handbook to England in the 1840s, later expanding to Europe, Near East, North Africa, and beyond. Compared with other guides such as Murray's, Cook's aimed at "a broader and less sophisticated middle-class audience." The books served to advertise Cook's larger business of organizing travel tours. The series continues today as Traveller Guides issued by Thomas Cook Publishing of Peterborough, England.
The Boulevard Beaumarchais is a boulevard of the 3rd, 4th and 11th arrondissement of Paris and the longest of the Grands Boulevards. The boulevard is around 700 meters long and 35 meters wide. It was originally named the Boulevard Saint-Antoine but had its name changed in 1831 to honor Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, whose mansion was built on the boulevard in 1780. The mansion was later seized by the government and demolished in 1818 in order to expand the Canal Saint-Martin. The boulevard was renovated in the 1980s.
James Fullarton Muirhead (1853-1934) was a Scottish editor and writer of travel guides, associated with the Baedeker publishing house for many years, prior to starting his own publishing house.