"Of all the great guidebook series, none has ever attained such heights as Baedeker. A hundred years ago, its books were so indispensable that EM Forster was in no way exaggerating when he had the heroine of A Room with a View burst into tears in a Florentine church when she realised she had left her book in her room. Without it, she had no way of knowing what was beautiful, and what should be ignored. "

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