Karel Capek was born in January, 1890, in Male Svatonovice, a small village in northeastern Bohemia, an area that is now Czechoslovakia. Capek, the youngest of three children, was a sickly child, but by all accounts, he had a happy childhood, largely because of the influence of his older brother, Josef, who was also his best friend. Capek began writing poetry and fiction in high school, and after graduation, Capek began publishing stories, illustrated by Josef, in Czech newspapers. After studying in Prague, Berlin, and Paris, Capek earned a doctorate at Prague's Charles University in 1915. Even while at school, Capek and his brother continued to write, publishing their first book, a collection of tales, in 1916. Capek worked as a journalist and as a tutor, and he was intensely interested in the subject of Czech nationalism, often writing on that subject for his newspaper articles. His first play...