Blue Guide
The Blue Guide to Wales
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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) |
| Publication types | Books |
| Nonfiction topics | Travel guides |
| Official website | www |
The Blue Guides are a series of highly 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 Edinburgh University, 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.
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Wikipedia