Albert Robida

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Albert Robida

Albert Robida (1848 - 1926) was an illustrator, etcher, lithographer, caricaturist, and novelist.

He was born in Compiègne, France, the son of a carpenter. He studied to become a notary, but was more interested in caricature. In 1866 he joined Journal Amusant as an illustrator. In 1880, with Georges Decaux, he founded his own magazine La Caricature, which he edited for 12 years. He illustrated tourist guides, works of popular history, and literary classics. His fame disappeared after World War I.

Albert Robida was rediscovered thanks to his trilogy of futuristic works:

Le Vingtième Siècle (1883)
La Guerre au vingtième siècle (1887)
Le Vingtième siècle. La vie électrique (1890)

These works made him another Jules Verne, often more daring. Unlike Verne, he proposed inventions integrated into everyday life, not creations of mad scientists, and he imagined the social developments that arose from them, often with accuracy: social advancement of women, mass tourism, pollution, etc. His La Guerre au vingtième siècle describes modern warfare, with robotic missiles and poison gas. His Téléphonoscope was a flat screen that delivered the latest news 24-hours a day, the latest plays, courses, and teleconferences.