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Abstract: The article analyzes the literary reputation of the Polish writer and philosopher Stanislav Lem. In the first part, the entire work of Lem is selected as the subject of research – artistic creation. The analysis is carried out on the basis of three “popularity indicators” described by A. I. Reitblat: indicators of an internal literary character; socio-cultural indicators and determined by the “sphere of book publishing and book distribution”. The authors of the article are interested in the reception of Lem’s work by Polish, Russian and American readers. It is concluded that in Poland, Lem’s literary reputation was very high in all three respects, but the writer himself felt misunderstood. In the United States, Lem’s literary reputation is associated with the scandal (“Lem Affair”), which revealed, on the one hand, poor knowledge of the works of the Polish writer, and on the other, provoked a deeper study of his work. The literary reputation of S. Lem turned out to be the most controversial in Russia: the writer was very popular and well known to both the mass and elite readers, but serious scientific studies of his work began to appear only after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The second part of the article is devoted to the literary reputation of S. Lem as a literary theorist (Philosophy of chance was chosen as the main work in this area. The article also notes that the original work has an important subtitle “Literature in the light of empiricism”). Based on the analysis of scientific papers on this topic, it was revealed that Lem’s contribution to the theory of literature is still being evaluated as polar. The Philosophy of chance is characterized by antinomic qualities (confusing – understandable, fascinating – boring, etc.). However, almost all researchers agree that the Philosophy of chance is multilingual and should be studied by scientists of different specialties. Lem focused on the receptive aspect of the work of art; it is the reader’s perception that forms, in his opinion, the structure of the work. The article also notes the closeness of the theoretical and literary ideas of Lem to the studies of R. Ingarden and W. Eco; however, the innovative nature of Lem’s views goes beyond the existing models of thinking.