The Terrible Children is one of Cocteau's key and most complex works, which literary scholars are arguing about to this day. A multi-layered and multi-level story of young brother and sister who rejected the "outside" world and created for themselves a strange, cruel and beautiful "Children's world", existing according to their own laws and rituals. The heroes of the novel - Paul and Elizabeth - from childhood live by the rules of their own game, from which nothing can distract them. And, growing up, they continue to live in their own world, which is doomed to collide with the real world ...The collection also includes the famous play "Infernal Machine" and the essay "Diary of a Stranger", in which, speaking of inspiration, memory, time, friendship, the author reveals his true face to us.