Prosper Mérimée (1803–1870) is best known for his short stories, but he was also a novelist, playwright, and renowned in the fields of history and archaeology. This book includes his plays, never before published in Russian, “Two Inheritances, or Don Quixote” (1850) and “The Adventurer’s Debut” (1853). At the center of the first is a traditional conflict associated with a profitable marriage and receiving an inheritance, but Merimee plays it out in a very unusual manner, bringing to the stage a modern Don Quixote and interweaving irony and drama in the play. The plot of “The Adventurer’s Debut” is based on historical events that took place in Russia during the Time of Troubles: Merimee shares with the reader the fruits of his scientific research and tells who, from his point of view, False Dmitry really was, from what environment the impostor came from and how A plan had matured in his head to impersonate the heir to the Russian throne who died in Uglich.