About the Book
The End of Books (La Fin Des Livres) [1894]
In 1895 Octave Uzanne and Albert Robida published, in France, Contes pour les Bibliophiles (Stories for Bibliophiles). We're going to re-publish this as an e-book, taking advantage of the ability of modern technology to reproduce the color and monochrome images in ways that would be prohibitively expensive to duplicate on paper. Here's a sample to get your interest piqued.
The eleven stories in Contes, all revolving around books (or at least printing) are interesting, bizarre, weird... one could go on in true Fanthorpian fashion. But even better than the stories are the illustrations by Albert Robida.
Robida was born in 1848 and died in 1926. During his lifetime he reportedly drew 60,000 pictures and wrote and/or illustrated over 200 books. His first published work came out in 1866, and he appeared in "La Vie Parisienne," as well as journals less well-known to the world outside France. One of his works, La Guerre au XXe Siècle (1887) is of some interest in the field of science-fictional treatments of future 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.
About the Author
Octave Uzanne, 1852-1931
French man of letters, bibliophile, editor and journalist. After studying classics, he moved to Paris to devote himself to books. From 1875, he worked at Advisor Bibliophile and then founded successively four journals: Bibliographical Miscellany, The Book, The Book Modern and Art and the Idea. In 1889, with 160 others, he founded a publishing company of French writers, the League of contemporary bibliophiles, later the Society of Independent bibliophiles.
He also published personal works: novels, fantasy books, literature reviews. They are lavishly illustrated editions in small print, produced in collaboration with artists such as Paul Avril and Felicien Rops.
Between two books, Uzanne circumnavigated the world in 1893.
Uzanne worked with Albert Robida on a collection of tales, Contes pour les bibliophiles, which contains the famous story called La Fin des livres (The End of Books).
He spent his last years in his apartment in St. Cloud, always surrounded by books and still writing.
