The book of memoirs sketches of Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) "Portraits-memoirs" represents author’s memoirs of the childhood and a youth and contains expressive portraits of the Parisian scene coryphaeuses (Sara Bernard, Mistingett, Moon-Sjulli, Eduar де Max, Isadora Duncan) and the well-known French writers. Through a prism of childhood memories Cocteau recreates a wide panorama of events of the beginning of the XX-th century, comparing this epoch to «intense magnificent performance», the personage of which he was himself. Sketches have been written in 1935, originally published in the "Figaro" newspaper and the same year published as a separate book with drawings of the author.