Its utility to tourists is not what has kept Forster's Alexandria: A History and a Guide in print decades after it was written.  In the tradition of Baedeker and Murray, whose guidebooks he had used and admired, Forster tried to make his own contribution to the genre useful; he provided suggested routes to the sites and sights and included small maps in the text and a large fold-out map in a pocket at the end of the book.  But the user Forster seems to have imagined for his guide is not a typical tourist, someone who might need to be oriented to train schedules, money exchange, and eating customs, and might look to a guide for hotel or restaurant recommendations.  There is none of this kind of practical information.

Forster assumes a reader who wants to travel through the political and philosophical history of Alexandria perhaps more than through its modern streets.  The first half of the book is "A History"; the "Guide" follows almost as an immense footnote.