Ángela Ruiz Robles (March 28, 1895 in Villamanín, León – October 27, 1975 in Ferrol, A Coruña) was a Spanish teacher, writer, pioneer and inventor of the mechanical precursor to the electronic book, invented 20 years prior to Michael Hart’s Project Gutenberg, commonly referred to as the true inventor of the e-book, and over half a century before present-day e-books.

In her second patent, 276,364, awarded in 1962, she modified the design to remove buttons and instead include rotational reels that presented the subjects and learning materials.

[1] Her device consisted of a series of text and illustrations on reels, all under a sheet of magnifying glass with a light for reading in the dark, and was to incorporate spoken descriptions of each topic.

She studied to become a teacher at a college in Leon and started her professional career in the capital of the province as an instructor of stenography, typing and commercial accounting between 1915 and 1916.

In 1917, her municipal council unanimously named her teacher and director of La Pola de Gordón school, located in León.

As a person, Ángela Ruiz Robles was well-known and admired for her devotion to her students and for striving to innovate the outdated teaching methods of the time.

Throughout her life, all of her books, inventions, and career were centered around making education accessible, easier, and enjoyable for all types of students and all their specific needs.

[5] In 1944, Ángela Ruiz Robles carried out the project of the Grammatical Scientific Atlas to help expand the knowledge on grammar, syntax, morphology, orthography and phonetics across the country.

On the left there is a series of automatic alphabets, in any language: slight pressure on a button displays the required letters, making words, sentences, a lesson or a topic, and all manner of writings.

The subjects are stored in the right-hand part, passing beneath a transparent, unbreakable sheet; these can be enlarged, and the books can be illuminated so that they can still be read if there is otherwise no light.

The device may be placed either on a table (like an ordinary book) or perpendicular to it, which is handy for the user, since it eliminates a great deal of mental and physical effort.