Peter Akroyd, whose pen belongs to a number of biographies of his great compatriots - Chaucer, Shakespeare, Newton, Turner - did not accidentally include the biography of Edgar Allan Poe in this series. In England, Poe was recognized much earlier and understood much deeper than in America. Thomas Gardie considered Poe "the first to fully grasp the possibilities of the English language," and Yates had no doubt that Poe was "the greatest of American poets." Edgar Allan Poe played a huge role in the development of European literature, becoming the forerunner of symbolism and surrealism, not to mention the fact that he laid the foundations of such popular genres in modern times as science fiction and detective fiction.