H. Stahl - Un roman in Luna

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Henri Stahl (1877-1942) was a Romanian stenographer and writer. Stahl was the chief stenographer of the Romanian Parliament and in 1908, he created an original system of a stenography, which became the Romanian stenography standard. In 1914, he published the first Romanian "classic science fiction" novel, Un român în lună ("A Romanian on the Moon"). He was the father of Şerban Voinea, an activist of the Romanian Social Democratic Party, of novelist Henriette Yvonne Stahl, and of sociologist Henri H. Stahl.

Born to a family of Alsatian and French-Swiss ancestry, Stahl was a student of historian Nicolae Iorga and he kept a good relationship with his professor for all his life.

Stahl's first writing was Un român în lună ("A Romanian on the Moon"), which he showed to Iorga prior to attempting to publish it. He met Iorga's opposition, who asked him "to forget the moon and stars" and try to write a book using the same style which he used for the first chapter of his book, in which he describes the city of Bucharest. As such, Stahl's literary debut was in 1910 with Bucureştii ce se duc ("Disappearing Bucharest"), a colourful description of people and places from the Romanian capital at the beginning of the 20th century.

Nevertheless, Stahl did publish his science fiction novel, first in 1913 a few chapters in the Victor Anestin's Ziarul Călătoriilor journal, and printed all of them as a single volume in 1914.

Henri Stahl (n.1877, Bucureşti - d. 1942) a fost un stenograf şi scriitor român din părinţi de origine alsaciană şi franco-elveţiană. Scriitorul a efectuat studii de istorie şi de drept, ajungând un apropiat colaborator al maestrului său, profesorul Nicolae Iorga.

A avut mari contribuţii la introducerea stenografiei, grafologiei şi metodei de expertiză grafologică în România. Astfel, ca Prim stenograf al Parlamentului a inventat sistemul românesc de stenografie (1908), adoptat oficial în 1941.

Sociologul Henri H. Stahl, scriitoarea Henriette Yvonne Stahl şi omul politic Şerban Voinea sunt descendenţii săi.