Two of Jules Verne's plays have long piqued the interest of American readers, and are included in this volume in translation for the first time. Both feature Frenchmen, recently returned from the United States, discovering the ephemeral nature of wealth. In The Castles of California, the Frenchman has come from the California gold fields--has he struck it rich, or has he had the bad luck of most of the "Forty-niners"? In A Nephew from America, an unattached ladies' man suddenly discovers that his late brother had a son in America, who is now an adult. And...