The three-volume collection of works by Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) will very fully present to our reader the literary work of this truly unique figure of Western European art of the 20th century: poet and prose writer, playwright and screenwriter, critic and art theorist, a diverse artist, painter, graphic artist, set designer, caricaturist , the creator of amazing frescoes, who seemed to be able to handle everything. This Renaissance-gifted man became for many years a symbol of the modern avant-garde. Once outlining the outline of his Collected Works, Jean Cocteau, the great avant-garde artist and pioneer of new paths in the art of the 20th century, designated the variety of types of creativity to which he paid tribute, with the same word - “poetry”: “Poetry of the novel”, “Poetry of cinema”, “Poetry of theatre”... This key word, “poetry”, also unites three disparate dramatic works included in the second volume and representing such an unusual phenomenon as the Jean Cocteau Theater, on for thirty years (from the 20s to the 50s) excited and stunned Paris and theatrical Europe. Turning to classical ancient mythology (“The Infernal Machine”), medieval legends and images of the so-called “Arthurian cycle” more than once used in literature “Knights of the Round Table”) and, finally, completely unexpectedly - to the techniques of the popular and beloved “boulevard theater” (“The Double-Headed Eagle”), Cocteau, as if with the touch of a magic wand, knows how to extract poetry from everything, illuminating the familiar in a new way, transforming him into Beauty. Turning to old myths and legends, dressing characters in ancient clothes, placing them in exotic surroundings, he speaks about our time, responds to the pain and conflicts of our time. All three of Cocteau's plays are published in Russian for the first time, which will undoubtedly be of interest to all theatergoers and fans of the work of the most original of the leaders of French literature of the 20th century.