La Fin Des Livres by Octave Uzanne and Albert Robida

(4 User reviews)   554
Robida, Albert, 1848-1926 Robida, Albert, 1848-1926
French
Ever wonder what people in the 1890s thought the future of reading would be? This book is your answer. It’s a wild, illustrated prediction from 1894 that got almost everything wrong in the best possible way. The authors, Octave Uzanne and Albert Robida, spin a tale where printed books are declared totally obsolete. Instead, they imagine a world of 'phonographic books' listened to in private parlors and public 'reading rooms' that are basically early podcasts. It’s a hilarious and fascinating look at how even the smartest minds can miss the mark when trying to predict technology, and it will make you look at your audiobook app in a whole new light.
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wars, and is the subject of current papers and a critical edition by I. F. Clarke in Britain. Robida is forgotten (or was never known) in America, but in France he is remembered. His sketches and caricatures, particularly of humorous and satirical visions of what lay in the future, were decades ahead of their time. Disney adopted some of his drawings as backgrounds for their views of the future at a pavilion at Epcot, and web sites attempt today to bring some of his best work back into circulation. If Robida is mostly forgotten, Uzanne can be truly said to have vanished from the cultural consciousness of the world. Yet he was well known as a writer and critic of his day, and some of his works command high prices from rare-book dealers. One presumes that much of his work was more bound to the circumstances of the current day than were the drawings of Robida, whose art has a certain timelessness to it (even where it graphically predicts a future that demonstrably did not happen). What follows is one of the pieces from _Contes_. Writing and drawing in 1894, Uzanne and Robida give us predictions of a post-literate society. Music and speech are everywhere! Newspapers are forgotten, and news presenters are valued for their emotional tone instead of the accuracy of their reporting. Recordings combined with cinema present costumed drama and humor in the home. (This is 1894, remember; Edison had truly just begun to produce his films.) Printed books are over and done with! They are no longer needed. As some companies _Hidden Knowledge_, for example) begin to create electronic books that will never be published in printed form, we need to remember... it was all predicted more than a hundred years ago. [Illustration] Notes on the re-creation of "The End of Books" The original drawings in the collection _Contes pour les Bibliophiles_ were scanned as black-and-white drawings at 600 dpi, and cleaned up in Photoshop. The drawings were extracted and processed individually to reduce their file size and improve their visual presentation on computer screens. The text was run through Textbridge 9, which did a surprisingly good job at OCR. The HTML layout merges the recovered text and the processed images back together again, and is designed to approximate that of the original. It is impossible to imitate it exactly, for all browser configurations, in HTML. You can do it in PDF; we looked at conversion to PDF but decided to keep things simple. One hopes also that future XML layout tools will provide this capability. The original is in French, and providing a proper translation is outside the scope of this project. I wrote a summary in English for those us of who do not have the French language. Or see the "Scribner's Magazine" references below. I have no idea what was originally written as the last word in the caption of the drawing of Public Domain Archive and the devil. It appears to have been scratched off the printing plate. _Contes pour les Bibliophiles_ was noted in "The Century Magazine" (May, 1895, page 354 ff.) in a review section on "Books in Paper Covers." I say noted; but actually, only the cover was reviewed. The cover was reproduced in a photoengraving in "Century" and its artistic values were denigrated; the contents apparently remained unread. Perhaps they were unhappy because Uzanne ocasionally appeared in English in "Scribner's Magazine", which competed fiercely with "Century". The story itself appeared in a clumsy English translation in "Scribner's", Vol. 16 (1894), pp 221-231, with illustrations by Robida — some the...

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Imagine it’s 1894. Books are everywhere, but two forward-thinking gentlemen, Octave Uzanne and Albert Robida, have a bold proclamation: the age of the printed book is about to end. They think carrying around heavy paper is just too inconvenient for the modern, fast-paced world.

The Story

The book is less a novel and more a speculative essay brought to life with Robida’s fantastic illustrations. It follows a narrator as he learns about the death of the book. In its place, society has embraced 'phonographic' or spoken-word recordings. People subscribe to stories and lectures delivered through tubes to their homes or gather in elegant salons to listen to professional narrators. They even have portable listening devices! The printed word is seen as a dusty relic, and the last bibliophiles are treated like eccentric museum pieces.

Why You Should Read It

Reading this is a joy because it’s so confidently wrong. They predicted the end of books, but couldn’t foresee radio, the internet, or even the paperback boom. Yet, their vision of audiobooks and on-demand entertainment is eerily prescient. It’s a funny, charming, and humbling reminder that predicting the future is hard. The real magic is in Robida’s detailed Art Nouveau illustrations, which paint this bizarre future with such conviction that you almost believe it.

Final Verdict

Perfect for history buffs, lovers of vintage sci-fi, or anyone who’s ever argued about technology ‘killing’ an art form. It’s a short, visually stunning trip into a past vision of our present. You’ll finish it with a smile, maybe listen to an audiobook, and feel a new appreciation for how wildly unpredictable progress really is.



ℹ️ Legacy Content

This publication is available for unrestricted use. It serves as a testament to our shared literary heritage.

Michelle Walker
1 week ago

After years of reading similar books, the explanations feel carefully crafted rather than rushed. Worth every second of your time.

Anthony Campbell
5 months ago

Simply put, the tone remains consistent and professional throughout. This felt rewarding to read.

Kimberly Jackson
5 months ago

I almost skipped this one, yet the diagrams and footnotes included in this version are very helpful. Time very well spent.

Melissa Wright
5 months ago

I went into this with no expectations and the pacing is just right, keeping you engaged from start to finish. This was both informative and enjoyable.

4.5
4.5 out of 5 (4 User reviews )

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