“Literature as a Social Institution” is almost the same age as independent humanities in Russia and one of the first books by the UFO publishing house. Over the course of many years, its authors, sociologists Lev Gudkov and Boris Dubin (1946–2014), sought to develop new approaches that would allow them to embrace the institution of literature as a whole, to explain how people build their reading circle and what social processes are associated with their choice. In their innovative and still relevant study, the scientists continued to explore the problematic map of the sociology of literature, introducing this discipline into the scientific context of Russia in the mid-1990s. The reader of the book will become acquainted with the history of the concepts of “literature” and “novel”, with the formation of fiction as an institution and the identification within its framework of classics, avant-garde and mass literature, which are in a relationship of mutual repulsion and mutual influence. The authors trace the complex and often conflicting relationships between writers, publishers, booksellers, literary critics, readers and teachers, analyze the role of magazines in the literary process, and study the influence of the book’s image on the readership. The new edition is supplemented by a number of related articles by authors and a foreword by L. Gudkov with reflections on the significance of this project.