The brightest figure in the history of literature of the 19th century, a constant participant in almost all notable, sometimes scandalous, events in the life of literary France of that time and at the same time a poet and writer who stands apart from all the “trends” and “directions” of his era, Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) is represented in this volume with five long stories. Created in the 1850-1860s, when the “battles for romanticism” died down and the aesthetic program of “art for art’s sake”, at the origins of which researchers place T. Gautier, became widespread, these stories reflect the talent of a mature master who had already honed his whimsical pen only in a similar genre (“Fortunio”, “King Candaules”, “Militon”), but also in a novel (“Mademoiselle de Maupin”), in a drama (“Tear of the Devil”), in a historical and literary essay (“Grotesques”) , in travel notes (“Travel to Spain”), in poetry (“The Comedy of Death”). The plot basis of all the seemingly so dissimilar stories told in this book is the insoluble conflict between reality and the ideal, the material world and the world , not subject to rational comprehension, manifesting itself through mysterious, fatal and exciting signs. The origins of this irrational plane of existence are very diverse: the mystical teaching of Indian yogis, the theory of “animal magnetism” created in the 18th century. the German physician and astrologer Mesmer (“Avatar”), folk beliefs (“Jettatura”), spiritualism and spiritual vision of Swedenborg (“Spirit”), the secrets of ancient Egyptian tombs (“Romance of the Mummy”). It is precisely this incomprehensible and mysterious world that the hero of each of the stories faces: either the ghost of a girl who was once in love with him appears to him, who after death found herself in a host of angels, then with the help of a miracle doctor he changes body with the husband of a Polish countess, for whom he burns with an unrequited, withering his passion, he forever gives his heart to the mummy of a beautiful, but, alas, Egyptian queen who died thousands of years ago. Even in “Jean and Jeanette,” the least mystical work, lovers can “meet” and truly get to know each other only by dressing in the dress of commoners and thus overcoming the boundaries of the everyday world of high society salons. Most of the stories are published in Russian translation for the first time. “The Romance of the Mummy,” previously known from the Russian version of the early 20th century, is offered to the reader in a new translation that adequately conveys the sophisticated writing style of T. Gautier and the state of scientific knowledge about the history and life of Ancient Egypt in Europe of the 19th century, which was covered by the present “archaeological fever.” The volume includes a detailed scientific apparatus, in the creation of which not only researchers of the writer’s work took part, but also specialists in the field of Indology and Egyptology, and the design used the rarest engravings and lithographs that were published as part of ancient bibliophile rarities and are still not known to the discerning domestic audience.