The Inca of Perusalem, An Almost Historical Comedietta (1915) is a comic one-act play written during World War I by George Bernard Shaw.

In a prologue, a character called Ermyntrude says that (though she is the widow of a millionaire) she is now poor, and living on a small income from her father.

The play was first produced at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1916, directed by John Drinkwater, with Gertrude Kingston as Ermyntrude and Felix Aylmer as the Inca.

[1] After its publication, Beatrice Webb wrote in her diary that it was not as good as Shaw's earlier play about the war, O'Flaherty V.C.

The Inca of Perusalem is poor in comparison"[2] In the preface to the published version, written after the war, Shaw wrote, "I must remind the reader that this playlet was written when its principal character, far from being a fallen foe and virtually a prisoner in our victorious hands, was still the Caesar whose legions we were resisting with our hearts in our mouths.

"[3] Critic John Anthony Bertolini says that the play "emphasizes images of disguise and impersonation" as "the sign of Shaw's self-consciousness about the art of playwrighting".

The play satirises his narcissistic belief that he is an artist, especially in description of the jewellery he gives to Ermyntrude, in which the rim represents a "telephone cable laid by his majesty across the Shipskeel canal" and the pin is "a model in miniature of the sword of Henry the Birdcatcher.

"[4] The fictional country of "Perusalem" puns on Peru, the home of the actual "Inca", and Prussia (Preussen in German), the kingdom from which Imperial Germany emerged and which was still commonly used as a synonym for it.