Frederick H. White and Yuri Leving have joined forces to produce a book devoted to analyzing the preservation and consecration of the literary legacies of Leonid Andreev and Vladimir Nabokov. Their goal is to demonstrate that the underlying economic factors of marketing literature and posthumous legacies are real. One of the book's salient features is to translate this in itself uncontroversial claim into the language of Pierre Bourdieu. This is a study of the production, protection, and transportation of symbolic capital across national and ideological boundaries.

The Russian Review

This is a stimulating and lively volume which calls attention to matters that scholars will want to explore in considering the works, the lives, and the legacies of other Russian writers as well.

Slavic and East European Journal

This well-researched book comprises two parts, or 'case studies' (10), on Leonid Andreev and Vladimir Nabokov. . . .The adduction of these [cultural economic] theories endows the book with a high degree of analytical rigor and generates a plethora of valuable insights into Andreev’s and Nabokov’s reception in Russia and the west.

Slavic Review

This engaging, highly accessible study examines the role of marketing in shaping the legacies of Leonid Andreev and Vladimir Nabokov. The authors take an original approach to literary study by focusing on how these two writers and their friends, family, contemporaries, and rival writers publicized their works, reframing them for diverse audiences while profiting from them economically and professionally. Rather than marginalize these mercantile issues as unworthy of interest in relation to a writer’s aesthetic value, Leving and White convincingly demonstrate that the establishment of what Pierre Bourdieu calls symbolic capital is essential to our appreciation and understanding of literature.

Alexander Burry, The Ohio State University

Applying concepts from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of culture to the careers and posthumous legacies of Andreev and Nabokov, Frederick White and Yuri Leving show how the actual business of culture works: by bypassing aesthetics, the authors aim to show how literary reputations are made by authors, publishers, booksellers, literary executors, academics, and even readers seeking to maximize their 'capital,' either financial or symbolic. The careers of Nabokov and Andreev, two central names in the history of Russian literature of the 20th century, the publication history of their books, and the roles played by their literary executors make for a fascinating and highly enlightening story about an aspect of the culture business that is usually ignored by general readers and academics alike. Highly recommended for anyone interested in modern Russian literature as well as the economics of literature.

Anthony Anemone, The New School