View source for Albert Robida

{{Short description|French illustrator}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2015}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Albert Robida
| image = Albert Robida.jpg
| caption = Robida c.1894
| birth_date = 14 May 1848
| birth_place = [[Compiègne]], [[French Second Republic|France]]
| death_date = 11 October 1926 (aged 78)
| death_place = Neuilly-Sur-Seine, [[French Third Republic|France]]
| occupation = Writer, illustrator, [[etcher]], [[lithographer]], [[caricaturist]], novelist, publisher
| nationality = French
| genre = [[Children's Books]], [[Graphic novels]]
}}

'''Albert Robida''' (14 May 1848 – 11 October 1926) was a French illustrator, etcher, lithographer, caricaturist, and novelist. He edited and published ''[[La Caricature (1880–1904)|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 (1880–1904)|''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]].
[[File:Nouvelle_carte_d'Europe.jpg|thumb|450x450px|Nouvelle carte d'Europe]]
Robida and his wife Marguerite (née Noiret) had seven children, three of which made contributions to the arts. His elder son [[Camille Robida|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]].<ref>{{cite web | url =http://nouvellesuzette.canalblog.com/archives/2010/08/24/18298722.html | title =Emilie Robida & Albert Robida |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> | date =24 August 2010 | website =Au bon vieux temps de La Semaine de Suzette | access-date =6 September 2022}}</ref>

École primaire Albert Robida, a school in his native Compiègne, is named in his honor.<ref>{{cite web | url =https://www.journaldesfemmes.fr/maman/ecole/ecole-primaire-albert-robida-grp-a/primaire-0601271F | title =École primaire Albert Robida grp A (60200, Compiègne) |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> | website =journaldesfemmes.fr | access-date =6 September 2022}}</ref>

==Futuristic Trilogy==
{{Related articles|Scientific Marvelous}}
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 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 [[Telephonoscope|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==
[[Image:Guerre Infernale No 02 Jan-Feb 1908.jpg|thumb|''La Guerre Infernale'', Episode 2, January 1908]]
[[File:Aerial house3.jpg|thumb|"Maison tournante aérienne" (aerial rotating house). One of Robida's drawings for his book ''Le Vingtième Siècle'', a nineteenth-century conception of life in the twentieth century. Ink over graphite underdrawing, c. 1883, digitally restored.]]

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.<ref>{{Citation|last=Iannuzzi|first=Giulia|title=The Cruel Imagination: Oriental Tortures from a Future Past in Albert Robida's Illustrations for La Guerre infernale (1908)|date=2017|url=https://www.openstarts.units.it/handle/10077/15718|publisher=EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste|language=en|isbn=9788883038426|access-date=2019-04-06}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
;Futuristic
[[File:Sortie de l'opéra en l'an 2000-2.jpg|thumb|''La Sortie de l'opéra en l'an 2000'' (c. 1902, digitally restored)]]

* ''[[Voyages très extraordinaires de Saturnin Farandoul]]'', 1879 (translated by [[Brian Stableford]] as ''The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul'')
* ''Le Vingtième siècle'', 1883 (translated by Phillipe Willems as ''The Twentieth Century'')
* ''La Guerre au vingtième siècle'', 1887
* ''Le Vingtième Siècle. La vie électrique'', 1890 (translated by [[Brian Stableford]] as ''Electric Life'')
* ''Voyage de fiançailles au XX<sup>e</sup> siècle
* ''Un chalet dans les airs'' (translated by [[Brian Stableford]] as ''Chalet in the Sky'')
* ''L'horloge des siècles'', 1902 (translated by [[Brian Stableford]] as ''The Clock of the Centuries'' {{ISBN|978-1-934543-13-9}})
* ''L'Ingénieur von Satanas'', 1919
;Other work
* ''L'Île de Lutèce : enlaidissements et embellissements de la Cité''
* ''La Bête au bois dormant''
* ''La Part du hasard''
* ''Le Voyage de M. Dumollet''
* ''Les Vieilles Villes d'Italie : notes et souvenirs''
* ''La Grande Mascarade parisienne''
* ''La Fin des Livres'', with [[Octave Uzanne]]
* ''Contes pour les bibliophiles'', 1895, with Octave Uzanne
* ''Les Vieilles Villes d'Espagne, notes et souvenirs''
* ''Un caricaturiste prophète. La guerre telle qu'elle est''
* ''1430, les assiégés de Compiègne''
* ''Paris de siècle en siècle; le cœur de Paris, splendeurs et souvenir''
* ''Le 19<sup>e</sup> siècle''
* ''Les Escholiers du temps jadis''
* ''Les Vieilles Villes d'Italie : notes et souvenirs''
* ''François Ier (Le Roi Chevalier)'', 1909, with texts by Georges Gustave-Toudouze
* ''Le Voyage de M. Dumollet''
;La Vieille France series
* ''La Bretagne'', text, drawings and 40 additional lithographies hors by A. Robida, Paris, Librairie illustrée, ca. 1900, 336 p.
* ''La Touraine'', text, drawings and lithography by A. Robida, Paris, La Librairie Illustrée, 336 p., 40 illustrations, undated [1892]. Tome II: [[Le Mans]], [[Laval, Mayenne|Laval]], [[Sablé-sur-Sarthe|Sablé]], [[Angers]], [[Saumur]], [[Thouars]], [[Loudun]], [[Chinon]], [[Vendôme]]
* ''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, Eure|Bernay]], [[Honfleur]], [[Le Havre]], [[Fécamp]], [[Dieppe (Seine-Maritime)|Dieppe]], [[Eu (Seine-Maritime)|Eu]], [[Rouen]], [[Louviers]], [[Évreux]], [[Vernon (Eure)|Vernon]]. Republished: Éd. de Crémille, Genève, 1994, 169 p.
* ''[[Provence]]'', Paris, À la Librairie illustrée, undated [1893], 332 p. [[Avignon]], [[Barbentane]], [[Orange (Vaucluse)|Orange]], [[Carpentras]], Vaucluse, [[Cavaillon]], [[Sisteron]], [[Tarascon]], [[Beaucaire, Gard|Beaucaire]], [[Arles]], [[Marseille]], [[Toulon]], [[Fréjus]], Nice, [[Monaco]], [[Menton]], [[Aix-en-Provence|Aix]], [[Nîmes]], [[Uzès]], [[Montpellier]], [[Béziers]], [[Narbonne]], [[Carcassonne]]
* ''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 ==
<references />

==Critical studies==
* Elizabeth Emery, "Albert Robida, Medieval Publicist," in: ''[http://works.bepress.com/richard_utz/86/ Cahier Calin: Makers of the Middle Ages. Essays in Honor of William Calin] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029194720/http://works.bepress.com/richard_utz/86/ |date=29 October 2013 }}'', ed. Richard Utz and Elizabeth Emery (Kalamazoo, MI: Studies in Medievalism, 2011), pp.&nbsp;51–55.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Albert Robida}}
{{wikisourcelang|fr|Albert Robida}}
 
* [http://albert-robida.blogspot.co.uk/ Albert Robida... et son blog] {{in lang|fr}}
* [http://blogs.bl.uk/european/2017/04/french-medieval-tales-in-the-19th-century.html/ 'French Medieval Tales in the 19th Century', British Library blog]
* [http://www.robida.info/ The friends of Albert Robida site] {{in lang|fr}}
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=PFAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA12 1942 ''Life'' magazine article] on accuracy of Robida's predictions of future warfare, with pictures
* {{gutenberg author | id=1043| name="Albert" Robida}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Albert Robida}}
* {{Librivox author |id=6127}}

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robida, Albert}}
[[Category:1848 births]]
[[Category:1926 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Compiègne]]
[[Category:French science fiction writers]]
[[Category:French speculative fiction artists]]
[[Category:French illustrators]]
[[Category:French caricaturists]]
[[Category:Writers from Hauts-de-France]]
[[Category:19th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:French male novelists]]
[[Category:19th-century French male writers]]