Lidiya Yakovlevna Ginzburg (1902–1990) is a major Russian literary critic. Two books by L. Ya. Ginzburg, united under one cover, concern the ways of constructing the image of a literary hero as a certain system of interconnected elements (“On the Literary Hero,” 1979) and the history of the slow development of techniques for conveying human thoughts and feelings in fiction, which culminated in psychological discoveries of the great realists of the 19th century (“On Psychological Prose”, 1971). The reader learns not only “how” this or that literary image is made, but also how the idea of a person has changed throughout the history of modern literature. A lively style of presentation, many striking examples, the phenomenal erudition of the author - all this makes Lydia Ginzburg's books interesting for the widest readership.