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Wikipedia / Albert Robida

Albert Robida (14 May 1848 – 11 October 1926) was a French illustrator, etcher, lithographer, caricaturist, and novelist. He edited and published La Caricature magazine for 12 years. Through the 1880s, he wrote an acclaimed trilogy of futuristic novels. In the 1900s he created 520 illustrations for Pierre Giffard's weekly serial La Guerre Infernale.

Biography

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. Robida and his wife Marguerite (née Noiret) had seven children, three of which made contributions to the arts. His elder son Camille became a well-known architect. His youngest son, Henry, had been tabbed to serve as consulting architect to the government of Siam (today Thailand), but his life was cut short by World War I. Daughter Émilie was also an illustrator. In addition to several collaborations with her father, she was published in periodicals such as Le Journal pour tous and La Poupée modèle. Another son, Frédéric, was a president of the Touring Club de France.

École primaire Albert Robida, a school in his native Compiègne, is named in his honor.

Futuristic trilogy

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

These works drew comparison with Jules Verne. 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 television display that delivered the latest news 24-hours a day, the latest plays, courses, and teleconferences.

Works with Pierre Giffard

Robida illustrated two works by Pierre Giffard:

  • La Fin du Cheval ("The End of the Horse"), on the inevitable replacement of the horse by the bicycle and then by the car.

  • La Guerre Infernale ("The Infernal War"), a 1908 serial adventure novel for children that appeared weekly every Saturday. Robida contributed 520 illustrations. The novel is set in the future and features uncanny parallels to World War Two, including an attack on London by Germany and a conflict between Japan and the United States. It was subsequently republished as a book.

Bibliography

  1. Futuristic

  2. Voyages très extraordinaires de Saturnin Farandoul, 1879 (translated by Brian Stableford as The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul)

  3. Le Vingtième siècle, 1883 (translated by Phillipe Willems as The Twentieth Century)

  4. La Guerre au vingtième siècle, 1887

  5. Le Vingtième Siècle. La vie électrique, 1890 (translated by Brian Stableford as Electric Life)

  6. Voyage de fiançailles au XXe siècle

  7. Un chalet dans les airs (translated by Brian Stableford as Chalet in the Sky)

  8. L'horloge des siècles, 1902 (translated by Brian Stableford as The Clock of the Centuries )

  9. L'Ingénieur von Satanas, 1919

  10. Other work

  11. L'Île de Lutèce : enlaidissements et embellissements de la Cité

  12. La Bête au bois dormant

  13. La Part du hasard

  14. Le Voyage de M. Dumollet

  15. Les Vieilles Villes d'Italie : notes et souvenirs

  16. La Grande Mascarade parisienne

  17. La Fin des Livres, with Octave Uzanne

  18. Contes pour les bibliophiles, 1895, with Octave Uzanne

  19. Les Vieilles Villes d'Espagne, notes et souvenirs

  20. Un caricaturiste prophète. La guerre telle qu'elle est

  21. 1430, les assiégés de Compiègne

  22. Paris de siècle en siècle; le cœur de Paris, splendeurs et souvenir

  23. Le 19e siècle

  24. Les Escholiers du temps jadis

  25. Les Vieilles Villes d'Italie : notes et souvenirs

  26. François Ier (Le Roi Chevalier), 1909, with texts by Georges Gustave-Toudouze

  27. Le Voyage de M. Dumollet

  28. La Vieille France series

  29. La Bretagne, text, drawings and 40 additional lithographies hors by A. Robida, Paris, Librairie illustrée, ca. 1900, 336 p.

  30. La Touraine, text, drawings and lithography by A. Robida, Paris, La Librairie Illustrée, 336 p., 40 illustrations, undated [1892]. Tome II: Le Mans, Laval, Sablé, Angers, Saumur, Thouars, Loudun, Chinon, Vendôme

  31. Normandy, text, drawings and lithographies by A. Robida, Paris, La Librairie illustrée, undated [1890], 331 pages, 40 additional duotone illustrations. Tome II: Bayeux, Lisieux, Bernay, Honfleur, Le Havre, Fécamp, Dieppe, Eu, Rouen, Louviers, Évreux, Vernon. Republished: Éd. de Crémille, Genève, 1994, 169 p.

  32. Provence, Paris, À la Librairie illustrée, undated [1893], 332 p. Avignon, Barbentane, Orange, Carpentras, Vaucluse, Cavaillon, Sisteron, Tarascon, Beaucaire, Arles, Marseille, Toulon, Fréjus, Nice, Monaco, Menton, Aix, Nîmes, Uzès, Montpellier, Béziers, Narbonne, Carcassonne

  33. Paris, Splendeurs et Souvenirs, Éditions de Crémille, Genève, 1992, textes, dessins et lithographies par A. Robida, 824 p., 2 volumes. Tome 1 : Le Cœur de Paris, 412 p. Tome 2 : Paris, de Siècle en Siècle, 412 p.

Notes

Critical studies