Czech novelist, short-story writer, political thinker, playwright, and teacher. Karel Čapek's play R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots (1920) added to Oxford English Dictionary a new word, "robot." It was derived from the Czech "robota," meaning someting like "work" or "serf", "forced labor", referring originally to dull work. Čapek's robots were not mechanical but humanlike beings of flesh and blood – now they would be called androids. Later the term was applied to machines. Along with Franz Kafka and Jaroslav Hašek, Čapek is among the great figures of modern Czech literature.

"Young Rossum invented a worker with the minimum amount of requirements. He had to simplify him. He rejected everything that did not contribute directly to the progress of work. He rejected everything that makes man more expensive. In fact, he rejected man and made the Robot. My dear Miss Glory, the Robots are not people. Mechanically they are more perfect than we are, they have an enormously developed intelligence, but they have no soul. Have you ever seen what a Robot looks like inside?" (in R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), translated by Paul Selver, Doubleday, Page and Company, 1923)

Karel Čapek was born in Malé Svatonovice, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now in Czech Republic). His father, Antonín Čapek, a country doctor, was a voracious reader whose own library was filled with books of history, philosophy, general  culture, world literature, and also fairy tales. The children were encouraged to use it. Čapek's mother Božena Capková pampered her son in his otherwise normal, happy childhood. Josef (1887-1945), Čapek's elder brother, became known as a painter, novelist, and dramatist. Occasionally he collaborated with his younger brother. Their sister, Helena (1886-1969), wrote a few novels.

While still at a grammar school in Hradec Králové, Čapek started to write poetry and short stories. To his first love, the beautiful "Anielka," the daughter of the local organist and music teacher, he wrote letters. She later married his school mate. Some of Čapek's poems were published in a student magazine. In 1909 he entered Charles University in Prague, where he studied philosophy, and then continued his studies in Berlin at the Frederick William University (now the Humboldt University of Berlin), and at the Sorbonne in Paris, receiving his doctorate in 1915. His thesis on "Objective Methods in Aesthetics, with Reference to Creative Art" (Objektivní metoda v estetice se zrením k vytvarnému umení) was extremely well received by his professors.

Zárivé hlubiny (1916), Čapek's first book, was written with Josef. It was followed by Boži muka (1917, Wayside Crosses), a collection of gloomy stories. Josef illustrated many of the following works, including Zahradníkuv rok (1929, The Gardener's Year), a several times reprinted collection of gardening pieces.

During World War I Čapek worked temporarily as a librarian at the Museum of the Bohemian Kingdom in Prague, and as a tutor in Žlutice to the son of Count Vladimir Lažanský, an outspoken nationalist, who ordered only Czech to be spoken in his household. Due to his physical disabilities, delicate constitution and spondyloarthritis of the vertebral column, he was found unfit for military service.

In 1917 Čapek setted in Prague, where joined the editorial board of the Národ weekly and became editor of the newspaper Národní listy. When his brother was dismissed from the paper as a result o his political views, Čapek left as well. He then began to contribute to the, Lidové Noviny, Brno's liberal and popular daily paper, where he stayed until his death.

Čapek's essays were written in a familiar tone. The subjects varied from frost flowers forming on a windowpane to how humankind would move more efficiently if people had wheels instead of legs. Most of the essays were playful or humorous, but Čapek also dealt with politics, mysteries, and aesthetic life. Thomas Mann praised the satirical view in the story 'War With the Newts.' Articles on Nazism and racism, and crisis of democracy in Europe, have not lost their topicality.

Čapek was familiar with the work of William James, and the philosophers Ortega y Gasset and Henri Bergson. He was also interested in H.G. Wells, who depicted future world, and Bernard Shaw, who examined in his plays social and philosophical problems. The translations he made in the 1920s of French symbolist poets inspited many Czech writers. A reader of mystery novels, he visited Baker Street and Dartmoor on his 1924 trip to England. While  in London, Čapek delivered a speech at the International PEN Club, and met Wells, Shaw and G.K. Chesterton. Upon his initiative, the Prague branch of the PEN was established in 1925. Čapek was elected as its President.

In 1920 Čapek met a young actress, Olga Scheinpflugová, who had the central role in his play Loupežník. During the following fifteen years, she was the object of his passionate love and adoration. Čapek wrote her many letters, and eventually they married in 1935. Enchanted by the beauty of Věra Hrůzová, the daughter of a professor, he also corresponded with her for almost eleven years. She inspired the heroine of the novel Krakatit (1924). 

The Fateful Game of Love, Čapek's first stage work, was written in 1910 and produced in 1930. As a playwright Čapek collaborated with his brother in several productions. One of their mutual acquaintances was the composer Leoš Janáček. Josef designed the sets for Janáček's Prague 1925 production of The Cunning Little Vixen, his seventh opera. Věc Makropulos (1924) provided the basis for Janáček's next opera.

After Adam stvoritel (pub.1927), another collaboration, Čapek wrote no more plays until 1937. In addition, Čapek worked as the art director of the National Art Theater and was closely associated with the Vinohrady Theatre. In 1922, mentally and physically exhausted, he gave up his post at the Vinohrady Theatre, and left for Italy. Čapek's travel sketches were collected in Italské listy (1923, Letters from Italy). 

Throughout his literary career, Čapek favored large, philosophical themes n his fiction. When Čapek was once asked why he doesn't write poetry, he said: "Because I loathe talking about myself." (The Art of the Novel by Milan Kundera, translated by Linda Asher, 1988, p. 145) Like a number of his contemporary expressionist playwrights and filmmakers, Čapek incorporated science fiction and fantasy elements into his work. He was not particularly interested in portraying everyday life.

Most likely, Čapek had in mind the Hebrew legend of the Golem, a man made of clay, when he wrote R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots. Perhaps he even had read Gustav Meyrink's Der Golem (1915), or seen Paul Wegener's and Carl Boese's film based on the novel. The word ''robot'' was coined by Čapek's brother Josef. (Czech robota, "forced labor.) Like the Golum, Čapek's robots are autistic beings of organic origin. They have blond hair and are dressed in clothes. The major functional difference is that the Golem cannot speak.

In the prologue R.U.R. the factory manager of the off-shore Rossum's Universal Robots company, Domain, tells about the origins of Robots. They were created by Young Rossum, the nephew of old Rossum, a materialist philopher, who wanted scientifically dethrone God. He turned into a raving lunatic. Young Rossum, a man of the new age, took charge of the project and invented Robot, a worker with the smallest number of needs. The best of them live about twenty years before they wear out. A robot revolt breaks out, and the formula is burned. Robots declare that the age of  humankind is over. "Room, room, more room for Robots!" At the end of the play, the robots discover love, making the discovery of new formula unnecessary.

R.U.R. was an immediate international success. In 1923 a public discussion about robots was held in London, featuring luminaries like G.B. Shaw and G.K. Chesterton. "If Almighty God had populated the world with Robots, legislation of this sort might have been reasonable," wrote the Times. (Brave New Worlds, edited  by Jeff Prucher, 2007, p. 164) The French writer and Nobel laureate Romain Rolland traveled especially to Prague in order to see the play. Fritz Lang's film Metropolis (1926) popularized the idea of robots as Maschinenmensch. Later Isaac Asimov's stories, collected in I, Robot (1950), made known the three laws of robotics.

Čapek did not believe in utopian ideas. In his first full-lenght novel, Továrna na absolutno (1922, The Absolute at Large), he took up the theme of Armageddon caused by overoptimism about technological progress. The story tells of a scientist, who invents the Karburator, a reactor that produces free energy. But at the same time it unleashes a destructive force, with the power to destroy large parts of the world. 

The satiric comedy Ze Zivota hmyzy (1921, The Insect Play), written with Josef, was produced in 1922. Čapek depicted human vices through the dreams of a drunken tramp. A female butterflies flirt with males and kill one, a beetle steals a store of dung, and ants struggle for power. At the end a number of the flying and dancing insects die. The tramp, who wrestles with death, too, eventually faces a new day, saying: "Look--look at the world.  Look at how much there is to do." An eyewitness to the Prague production complained, that the constant "buzzing" of the actors made them all exhausted and sweaty.

Matka (1938), Čapek's final drama, was about a mother, whose husband and sons are killed fighting for their ideals. She refuses to allow her youngest son to go against an approaching army reported to be killing women and children. Finally she gives him a rifle so that he may join the struggle for humanity. Most of the story was presented in the form of a dialogue between the mother and the ghosts of her dead family members.

In The Insect Play, first performed at the National Theatre in Brno in 1922, and Power and Glory (1937), which was staged in Prague and Brno, Čapek examined how too much power can corrupt a political leader.  He was a friend and biographer of the first president of Czechoslovak Republic, Tomáš Masaryk, working with him to unify the country, and recording Masaryk's political ideas in Hovory s T.G. Masarykem, published in three volumes between 1928 and 1935.

Čapek's philosophical novel trilogy, Hordubal (1934), Povetron (1934), and Obycejný život (1934), set around a hospital bed. The trilogy, which centers round problems of truth and reality, consist almost entirely of dialogues. Hordubal was on its surface a retelling of an actual murder case. In Povetron Čapek studied how a few facts about an unknown man gives room to different interpretations, and in the last part of the trilogy an ordinary person discovers a complex combination of different personalities hidden in his own mind. In the Soviet Union, Hordubal was translated into English, German, Polish, and Russian. In the Soviet Union, Andrei Platonov promoted Čapek's work, and reviewed them under a pseudonym. Platonov admired his use of dialogue and the fusion of reality and fantasy. (Lost in the Shadow of the Word: Space, Time, and Freedom in Interwar Eastern Europe by Benjamin Paloff, 2016, p. 190)

Válka s mloky (1936, The War with the Newts) was both a satire on modern science and international politics. In the story nonhumans again adopt human traits, which lead to catastrophe – this time a sea-dwelling race of "newts" are discovered in the South Pacific and enslaved first by The Salamander Syndicate, established by a Jewish businessman named G.H. Bondy. The smart and adaptable newts labour for the benefit of humankind and are used as guinea pigs in scientific research. In spite of their intellectual achievement, they are regarded as animals without soul, andhave no civil rights. As their population grows, the newts demand more living space – Čapek's direct reference to the Nazi policy of "Lebensraum." With their new führer, Chief Salamaner, the newts start a war against their masters. Portions of continents are sunk under the sea. After a war between two dominating newt civilizations, in which both are destroyed, the humans return from their retreats in the mountains. Though Čapek's main theme was not the war between worlds, humans and submarine newts, many reviewers categorized the work as Wellsian.  

"Yet here again there is a paradox: Capek's greatness as a writer often depends not on the success of his conscious intention, but on what has slipped in, almost in spite of the author. In spite of his experimentalism, his use of scientific or philosophic themes, traditional literary values abound in his works. In spite of his determined effort to come to grips with life, and unconscious terror of life returns returns again and again in his work. Though he tried not to admit it, Capek kept stumbling over the tragedy of life. All his work after Wayside Crosses is in a sense a defense against the metaphysical horror which he perceived in that book." (William E. Harkins in Karel Capek, Columbia University Press, 1962, p. 169)

The settlement at Munich of September, 1938, by the Western nations, in which Czechoslovakia was allowed to be overrun by Germany, was a severe blow to Čapek, an ardent spokesman for democracy who had strongly condemned war and Nazism. On 30 September, 1938, he signed the writer's declaration 'To the Conscience of the World'. Louis Aragon and other French writers nominated him for the Nobel Prize. At that time Čapek's health had rapidly deteriorated – partly perhaps weakened by his feverish writing and exhaustion. Suffering from fascist harassment, he took a refuge in Strž, where worked on his last novel, Život a dílo skladatele Foltýna (1939).

Čapek died of pneumonia on December 25, 1938, in Prague, just three months before the invasion of Czechoslovakia. His works were blacklisted by the Nazis, who first came to his house to arrest him without knowing of his death. Čapek's brother Joseph was sent to a German concentration camp; he died at Bergen-Belsen in April 1945.

During the Communist reign Čapek's work did not gain a full favor of the government and his books were removed from the libraries and bookstores. Especially Čapek's closeness to Masaryk bothered the censors. Moreover, he was considered having been too international. One of his suppressed works was the booklet Why I Am Not a Communist (1924), in which he stated: "I cannot be a communist, because communism's morality is not a morality of help. Because it preaches elimination of the social order and not elimination of the social vice which is poverty . . ." (Karel Čapek: Life and Work by Ivan Klíma, 2002, p. 131)

After the State Literary Publishing House in Moscow published a selection of Čapek's works, the unofficial ban was lifted. (Communism in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1960 by Edward Taborsky, 1961, p. 568) The War with the Newts, which criticized, besides totalitarianism, also big corporations and consumerism, was republished with some changes. The section on the sexual life of the newts in the first chapter was omitted from the Finnish translation of the novel, published by WSOY in 1938. 

For further reading: Karel Čapek by Václav Cerny (1936); Karel Čapek by W. E. Harkins (1962); Karel Čapek by Ivan Klima (1962); První rada v díle Karla Čapka by Oldrich Králik (1972); Karel Čapek: In Pursuit of Truth, Tolerance and Trust by Bohuslava R. Bradbrook (1997); Karel Čapek: Life and Work by Ivan Klima (2002); 'Introduction' by Ivan Klima, in R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), translated by Claudia Novack (2004); 'The Politics of Plague Theatre: Artaud, Čapek and Camus,' in Legacies of Plague in Literature, Theory and Film by Jennifer Cooke (2009); Art and Life in Modernist Prague: Karel Čapek and His Generation, 1911-1938 by Thomas Ort (2013); Tři stálice moderní české prózy: Neruda, Čapek, Kundera by Aleš Haman (2014); 'When You're Not Really Feeling Yourself: Immaturity and the Double (Witold Gombrowicz, Karel Capek, Richard Weiner),' in Lost in the Shadow of the Word: Space, Time, and Freedom in Interwar Eastern Europe by Benjamin Paloff (2016); Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre by Darko Suvin; edited by Gerry Canavan (2016); Prahou bratří Čapků by Jaromír Slomek (2020); Ein Jahrhundert Roboter: Karel Čapeks R.U.R. (1920/21): Beiträge zum 13. Bohemicum Dresdense, 02.07.2022, edited by Holger Kusse (1923)

Selected works:

• Lásky hra osudná, wr. 1910 (with Josef Čapek, prod. 1930) [The Fateful Game of Love]
• Zářivé hlubiny, 1916 (with Josef Čapek)
• Boži muka, 1917 - Wayside Crosses (tr.  Norma Comrada, in Cross Roads, 2002)
• Pragmatismus čili Filosofie praktického života, 1918
• Krakonosova zahrada, 1918 (with Josef Čapek)
• Kritika slov, 1920
• Loupežník, 1920 (prod.) [The Outlaw]
• Kritika slov, 1920
• O nejbližších vecech, 1920 - Intimate Things (translated by Dora Round, 1935)
• Trapné povídky, 1921 (in Money and Other Stories, 1929) / Painful Tales  (tr.  Norma Comrada, in Cross Roads, 2002)
• R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots, 1920 (prod. Prague National Theatre, January 25, 1921) - R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots: A Fantastic Melodrama (translated by P. Selver, 1923) / R.U.R. (translated and introduced by Cathy Porter and Peter Majer, in Čapek: Four Plays, 2000) / R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots (tr. Claudia Novack, 2004) / Rossum's Universal Robots (R.U.R.): A Collective Drama in Three Acts with a Comedy Prelude (translated by David Short, 2011) / R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life (edited by Jitka Čejkova.2023́) - Rossumin Universaalit Robotit (suom. Jalo Kalima, teoksessa Maailmankirjallisuuden kultainen kirja: slaavilaisten kirjallisuuksien kultainen kirja, 1936) / R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots: kollektiivinen draama, jossa on alkukomedia ja kolme näytöstä (suom. Eero Balk, 2009)
• Věc Makropulos, 1920 (prod. 1922; opera by Leoš Janáček) - The Makropoulous Secret (tr. 1925; adapted by Randal C. Burrell, 1965) / The Makropulos Case (opera libretto, tr.  Norman Tucker, 1966) / The Makropoulos Case (translated and introduced by Cathy Porter and Peter Majer, in Čapek: Four Plays, 2000)
• Ze života hmyzu, 1921 (with Josef Čapek) - The Insect Play (tr.  Paul Selver, 1923; Cathy Porter and Peter Majer, in Čapek: Four Plays, 2000) / And So Ad Infinitum (Eng. tr. 1923) / The World We Live In (the Insect Comedy): A Play in Three Acts with Prologue and Epilogue (tr. 1933) - Hyönteiselämää: libretto Kalevi Ahon kaksinäytöksiseen oopperaan (1996)
• Továrna na absolutno, 1922 - The Absolute at Large (Eng. tr. 1927)
• Italské listy, 1923 - Letters from Italy (Eng. tr. 1929)
• Angliké listy, 1924 - Letters from England (translated by Paul Selver, 1925)
• Krakatit, 1924 - Krakatit (translated by Lawrence Hyde, 1925) / An Atomic Phantasy (translated by Lawrence Hyde, 1948) - Insinööri Prokopin aivokuume (suom. Martti Jukola, 1944)
• O nejbližších věcech, 1925 - Intimate Things (translated by Dora Round, 1935)
• Skandální aféra Josefa Holouška, 1927
• Adam stvořitel, 1927 (with Josef Čapek) - Adam the Creator (translated by Dora Round, 1929)
• Spiskybratrí, 1928-47 (51 vols.)
• Hovory s T.G. Masarykem, 1928-1935 (3 vols.) - President Masaryk Tells His Story (Eng. tr. 1934); Masaryk on Thought and Life (translated by M. & R. Weatherall, 1938)
• Povídky z jedné kapsy and Povídky z druhé kapsy, 1929 - Tales from Two Pockets (translators: Paul Selver, 1932; Norma Comrada, 1994)
• Zahradníkův rok, 1929 - The Gardener's Year (translators:  M. and R. Weatherall, 1931; Geoffrey Newsome, 2004) - Puutarhurin vuosi (suom. Toivo Kalervo, 1961)
• Výlet do Španěl, 1930 - Letters from Spain (translated by Paul Selver, 1931)
• Money and Other Stories, 1930 (tr. Francis P. Marchant et al., with a foreword by John Galsworthy)
• Minda; cili, O chovu psu, 1930 - Minda; or, On Breeding Dogs (Eng. tr. 1940)
• Marsyas čili na okraj literatury (1919-1931), 1931 - In Praise of Newspapers and Other Essays on the Margin of Literature (tr. M. and R. Weatherall, 1951)
• Obrázky z Holandska, 1932 - Letters from Holland (translated by Paul Selver, 1933)
• O věcech obecných čili Zoon politikon, 1932
• Devatero pohádek a ještě jedna od Josefa Čapka jako přívažek, 1932 - Fairy Tales With One Extra As a Makeweight (Eng. tr. 1933)
• Dášeňka čili život štěněte, 1933 - Dashenka: The Life of a Puppy (tr.  M. & R. Weatherall, 1933)
• Hordubal, 1933 - Hordubal (translated by M. and R. Weatherall, 1934) - Kotiinpaluu (suom. Reino Silvanto, 1937)
• Povětroň, 1934 - Meteor (translated by M. and R. Weatherall, 1935)
• Obyčejný život, 1934 - An Ordinary Life (tr.  M. and R. Weatherall, 1936)
• Legenda o cloveku zahradníkovi, 1935
• Mlčení s T. G. Masarykem, 1935
• Válka s mloky, 1936 - The War with the Newts (translators: M. & R. Weatherall, 1937; Ewald Osers, 1985) - Salamanterisota (suom. Reijo Silvanto, 1938)
• Cesta na sever, 1936 - Travels in the North (tr. M. & R. Weatherall, 1939)
• První parta, 1937 - The First Rescue Party (translated by M. & R. Weatherall, 1939)
• Bílá nemoc, 1937 (produced) - Power and Glory (tr. Paul Selver and Ralph Neale, 1938) / The White Plague (tr. Michael Henry Heim, 1988; Cathy Porter and Peter Majer, in Capek: Four Plays, 2000)
• Matka, 1938 (produced) - The Mother (tr.  Paul Selver, 1939) - Äiti (suom.)
• Jak se co dělá, 1938 - How They Do It (translated by M. and R. Weatherall, 1945) 
• Život a dílo skladatele Foltýna, 1939 - The Cheat (Eng. tr. 1941)
• Měl jsem psa a kočku, 1939 (with Josef Čapek) - I Had a Dog and a Cat (translated by M. & R. Weatherall, 1940)
• Kalendář, 1940
• O lidech, 1940
• Kniha Apokryfů, 1945 - Apocryphal Stories (translated by Dora Round, 1949; Norma Comrada, 1997)
• Vzrušené tance, 1946
• Bajky a podpovídky, 1946
• Sedm rozhlásků Karla Čapka, 1946
• Ratolest a vavřín, 1947
• Obrázky z domova, 1953
• Velká kočičí pohádka, 1954 - A Long Cat Tale (tr. 1996)
• Sloupkový ambit, 1957
• Poznámky o tvorbě, 1959
• Viktor Dyk, St. K. Neumann, bratři Čapkové; korespondence z let 1905-1918, 1962
• Nabrehu dnu, 1966
• Divadelníkem proti své vůli, 1968
• V zajetí slov, 1969
• Čtení o T. G. Masarykovi, 1969
• Misto pro Jonathana, 1970
• Listy Olze, 1971
• Good Men Still Live! ("I Am the Other Karel Čapek."): The Odyssey of a Professional Prisoner, 1974 (by Alan Levy)
• Drobty pod stolem doby, 1975
• Neuskutecneny dialog, 1978
• Univerzitní studie, 1987
• Three Novels: Hordubal, An Ordinary Life, Meteor, 1990 (tr. M. and R. Weatherall)
• Toward the Radical Center, 1990 (foreword by Arthur Miller, translated by Norma Comrada et al.)
• Nine Fairy Tales and One More Thrown in for Good Measure, 1990 (translated by Dagmar Herrmann)
• Talks with T.G. Masaryk, 1995 (tr. Dora Round)
• V hluboké úctě a oddanosti, 1999 (ed. Vojtěch Fejlek)
  
• Pseudonymní a anonymní tvorba Karla Čapka v týdeniku Nebojsa, 1918-1920, 2000
  
• O Edvardu Benešovi / Karel Čapek, 2000
  
• Čapek: Four Plays, 2000 (translated and introduced by Cathy Porter and Peter Majer)
• O demokracii, novinách a českých poměrech: výbor z publicistických prací uspořádal Ivan Klíma, 2003
• The Absolute at Large, 2005 (introduction to the Bison Books edition by Stephen Baxter)
  
• Believe in People: The Essential Karel Čapek, Previously Unstranslated Journalism and Letters, 2010 (selected and translated with an introduction by Šárka Tobrmanová-Kühnová)
  
• The Absolute at Large, 2019 (Dover edition)
  
• R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificil Life, 2023 (edited by Jitka Čejková)