The Blue Guides are a series of highly detailed and authoritative travel guidebooks focusing almost exclusively on art and architecture along with the history and context necessary to understand them. (A minimum of practical travel information 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.
Famous quotes containing the words blue and/or guides:
“While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.”
—Li Po (701–762)
“Old politicians, like old actors, revive in the limelight. The vacancy which afflicts them in private momentarily lifts when, once more, they feel the eyes of an audience upon them. Their old passion for holding the centre of the stage guides their uncertain footsteps to where the footlights shine, and summons up a wintry smile when the curtain rises.”
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990)