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We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. R.U.R. is a science fiction play in the Czech language by Karel Capek. R.U.R. stands for Rossum's Universal Robots, an English phrase used as the subtitle in the Czech original. It premiered in 1921 and introduced the word robot to the English language and to science fiction as a whole.The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called robots. Unlike the modern usage of the term, these creatures are closer to the modern idea of androids or even clones, as they can be mistaken for humans and can think for themselves. They seem happy to work for humans, although that changes and a hostile robot rebellion leads to the extinction of the human race. After finishing the manuscript, Capek realized that he had created a modern version of the Jewish Golem legend. 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This period culminated in the 1922 production of \u003ci\u003eAnna Christie,\u003c\/i\u003e a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of social realism that was among the first of the author's plays to explore characters searching for their own identities. Centering on the reunion of a barge captain and his daughter after a twenty-year separation, the play derives its tension from the former's disaffection for the seafaring life and the latter's love for a sailor. The father-daughter conflict elicits a shocking confession, which illuminates the author's contention that character is fate and the seemingly external forces controlling destiny actually lie within.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAnna Christie\u003c\/i\u003e amply displays O'Neill's extraordinary insights into character and his masterly use of language, qualities that have earned him acclaim as one of America's greatest playwrights. 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Opinion on the matter quickly divides and a lively argument about money and morality, idealism and realism ensues as Hesione's rakish husband, snobbish sister, and Ellie's fianc --a wealthy industrialist--enter the debate. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003eHeartbreak House \u003c\/i\u003ewas written between 1916 and 1917, as war raged across Europe. With its bold combination of high farce and bitter tragedy, it remains an uncannily prophetic depiction of a society on the threshold of an abrupt awakening. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e This is the definitive text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. 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