Robert Frost's recognition as a poet came relatively late but grew into a spectacular crescendo that has never stopped, even if critical appreciation has been divided among poets, literary critics, and general readers. He had tried and most often failed to publish his poems in magazines in the United States. The only collections of his poetry that he had assembled before 1912 were the privately printed Twilight, just two copies of three poems for Elinor, and a small collection for Susan Hayes Ward, editor of the Independent. After arriving in England, Frost assembled A Boy's Will, and the first English publisher to whom Frost presented it, David Nutt, agreed to publish it. Frost was thirty-nine when it appeared. A year later, Nutt published North of Boston, a book consisting of poems far different in form from the first book.

Frost received remarkable praise on both sides of the Atlantic, expressing different perceptions on how he had become an American poet. Of A Boy's Will, Norman Douglas wrote in The English Review: