Obviously the concept of the robot as we understand it today is a relatively recent construction. However, literature has spanned and will continue to span an impressive spectrum of human thought. It has found the robot as a concept in rudimentary but seminal beginnings and brought it to the ornate and multifarious imaginings depicted by today's writers. The works below represent a small but significant collection of texts that have contributed to the development of the robot. The construction of the robot provides a referential fulcrum from which one moves to seek further definitions of self and the surrounding world.