R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)

Karel Čapek wrote with intelligence and humor on a wide variety of subjects. .... He is perhaps best known as a science fiction author, who wrote long before science fiction became established as a separate genre. He can be counted as one of the founders of classical non-hardcore European science fiction, which focuses on possible future (or alternative) social and human evolution on Earth, rather than technically advanced stories of space travel.