The proposed collection of articles, prepared by the textual sector organized at the Institute of World Literature, aims to highlight one important problem, namely the establishment of the canonical text of classical writers. Paying tribute to the successes achieved in Soviet publications, the authors of the articles of the collection at the same time point to the controversial, and sometimes incorrect, in their opinion, solution of problems when choosing and publishing texts. They try to understand the reasons leading textologists to erroneous decisions and distortions of texts, and hope that the experience of studying achievements and errors will help improve the publication of the works of classical writers.