Envisioning the Future

Albert Robida had a fun but clear-eyed view of the future. Writing and illustrating at the end of the 1800s, he imagined what the year 2000 would look like. Who could picture the world more than a century in the future?

- By Meg Moss

Robida was a French science fiction writer, or what people in those days often called a "master of anticipation." Jules Verne, also of France, had pioneered the science fiction genre a generation earlier. He had written such books as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Compared to Verne's vision of monstrous futuristic ships and lengthy, dangerous voyages, Robida's future world seems almost ordinary. He was most interested in what everyday life might be