Old, rare, fun: collectible out-of-print travel guides
Posted June 20th, 2008 by Antonia MalchikFollowing on Liz’s post about great bookstores worldwide, and on the seemingly collective obsession we PT bloggers have with books (especially, of course, those related to travel), I’m happy to be able to point readers in the direction of an article on ABEBooks that combines travel and booklust.
I’m always happy to tout ABE anyway, since you can find almost any book on the planet on it and support over 13,000 independent booksellers at the same time. But if you’re a lover of old travel guides you’ll really want to read an article they’ve posted about collecting rare, antique, or simply old out-of-print travel guides. Not only does it give fun little snippets from the humble beginnings of Fodor’s and Frommer’s, and snippy responses to Baedeker’s like “guidebooks for the common American,” it also gives links to some of the most collectible (and expensive) old travel guides around. I like the Baedeker with a Biedermeier cover for $4400, but real treats are the Emigrant guides that were published for farmers and pioneers and gold diggers (of both varieties) looking to settle in the American West. You could pay over $500 for a guide to the “backwoods and prairie,” also known as the Western States. Tempting, but I bet my ancestors didn’t pay that much for it when settling a Montana homestead in the 1880s.
There is an attraction in old travel guides. Something about the language or lyricism or simply the enjoyment of a world that, pre-Internet and cheap air travel, was more mysterious and fascinating viewed from the comfy perspective of those secure in their country’s preeminence. Personally, I like ones that are even harder to find, written by natives with a love for their city of culture. I’ve got a few: a Soviet-era publication called “Around the Golden Ring of Russia,” whose elegant language reminds me of the kind of letters written by my great-grandmother; Henriette Mandl’s “In Search of Vienna: Walking Tours of the City;” and “Florence:an appreciation of her beauty,” a 1960 guide by then-mayor of the city Piero Bargellini, complete with colored plates and a foldout map.
Using old guides to traverse a place is a unique experience. Compare traveling through Italy guided by an old Baedeker with doing the same with a modern Let’s Go or Lonely Planet — by switching volumes you could be in an entirely different country without moving a step.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:31 am
We have four tiny red leather bound Baedeker’s guides and one phrase book - they’re in German and have beautiful but extremely fragile fold out maps in them, and some fold out illustrations of Alpine elevations in Switzerland with the names of the peaks called out. My favorite one is a guide to southern France - when I opened it up, a couple of receipts fell out, one for dinner, and a couple of ticket stubs from the Palais du Papes and some other sights… they’re from the 1880s! Useless for travel, but things of beauty. And the phrase book is full of such useless gems as “Light a fire in my room and tell the chambermaid I should like to have my bed warmed.”
Priceless.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:15 am
That is beautiful. I do love reading that kind of language — makes me think of cirlicues and a nostalgic era when toilets were regrettable and someone else washed your clothes. (Of course, we all envy the rich travelers — I probably would have been the washerwoman!) I envy you your guides! And those receipts are absolutely fantastic. Things to treasure, they will continue to speak across centuries.