Today, the literary estate of authors is both a primary and self-evident subject of study in literary science. However, this self-evidence conceals how highly presupposed this construct is from a historical perspective. This book addresses those very prerequisites. The essays collected within it explore for the first time the overarching structures of the philological and poetic impact of literary estates. Within this global framework, the specific issue of literary studies is focused on how authors have responded to the changing situation regarding literary estates since around 1750: Does the establishment and transformation of literary estates manifest in poetic processes? Does literary criticism and philological perception also change?.