The book begins by highlighting the fact that watching a puppet show leads to the rediscovery of childlike imaginative capacities. Drawing on Coleridge’s concept of ‘a willing suspension of disbelief’ and Kendall Walton’s notion of ‘mimesis’ as ‘make-believe’, it defines puppetry as a theatrical form based on the acceptance of two pacts: the fictional pact, whereby spectators agree to believe in the characters, and the puppetry pact, whereby spectators accept that objects can appear to be living beings. It then addresses the challenge of defining ‘puppetry’ in and of itself. It emphasises the ambiguities and changes in terminology, the various typologies of animated objects in different European languages, and, above all, the challenge of grouping together well-established traditional forms and the ever-changing landscape of contemporary practices under a single designation. The chapter then highlights that no overview of the repertoires performed by puppet theatres in Western Europe exists, nor have their distinctive features been classified. It presents the current state of research: the few existing works on this subject only offer a partial view because access to the plays is difficult, with many being unpublished or forgotten. The chapter concludes with a presentation of the methodology used to answer the following question: is there a specific form of dramatic writing for puppets?