R.U.R. Rossum's Universal Robots original printing (Czech) (1920) via Internet Archive

This scan of the original printing of the play includes the original cover, drawn by Josef Čapek, Karel Čapek’s brother. The play’s age is apparent, the play protected by a modern folio, yet broken and worn in places. Distinctions appear between the original and translations. For instance, Helena Glory is named Gloryová in the original.

This original also gives insight into an often-lost aspect of the play: It is one of the only pieces of Czech literature commonly referenced in English. The Nazis and Soviet regimes targeted Czech peoples, with Josef Čapek dying in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Czech art and literature of the interwar period was suppressed after the collapse of democracy in the recently-Soviet Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. However, the play in translation endured.