Background
Karel Capek was a Czech journalist, novelist, and dramatist, was born Jan. 9, 1890, in Male Svatohovice,Bohemia(now Czech Republic). He studied philosophy in Prague, Berlin, and Paris and received a degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1915. From 1917 he was on the editorial staff of various newspapers, in which many of his short stories and essays first appeared. He died in Prague on Dec. 25, 1938.