André Maurois is a famous French writer, member of the French Academy, a classic of French literature of the 20th century. His creative heritage is extensive and multifaceted - psychological novels, short stories, travel essays, historical and literary works, etc. But above all, Maurois is a recognized master of novelized biographies of Dumas, Balzac, Victor Hugo, etc. And therefore the writer’s appeal to the genre of literary portrait - his a kind of mini-biography, a short essay dedicated to one or another colleague in the shop, was not accidental. By combining essays into cycles, Maurois built his history of the development of literature. In this book, Maurois pays a lot of attention to his contemporaries - the French writers Andre Gide, Romain Rolland, Jean Cocteau, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Louis Aragon, etc. But there are sections dedicated to outstanding authors of other countries and eras - Herodotus, Shakespeare, L. Tolstoy and others. Incredible erudition, accuracy of observations, mastery of presentation allow Maurois to perfectly convey the psychological and creative portraits of his heroes. This publication consists of two author’s collections – “From Gide to Sartre” and “From Aragon to Monterlant”. Most of the texts are published in Russian for the first time. The publishing layout is saved in PDF A4 format.