Albert Robida

Born in Compiègne, France, in 1848, Albert Robida built a career that stretched across drawing, printmaking, journalism, and fiction. He is remembered not just as a novelist but as a prolific visual artist whose work appeared in magazines and illustrated books, giving his stories an unmistakable personality.

Robida is especially celebrated for imagining future worlds filled with inventions, busy modern cities, and everyday technologies that seem surprisingly prophetic today. Works such as Le Vingtième Siècle helped make him an important early voice in speculative fiction, though his approach was often playful and satirical rather than purely scientific.

He died in 1926 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, leaving behind a body of work that sits at the crossroads of science fiction, comic art, and social commentary. For many readers, the fun of Robida lies in seeing how sharply he observed his own era while dreaming up the next one.