Claudius Madrolle (22 July 1870 – 16 June 1949) was a French explorer in Africa and Asia and editor of travel guides who specialized in East Asia.[1][2] 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.
