Just 2000 copies of "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept" were published in 1945 by Editions Poetry London, and it did not achieve popularity until a good deal later. It is a fictional work, largely based on Smart's affair with Barker up until that point. "The power of emotion to transform one's perspective on the world," a recent "Open Letters Monthly" review of the novel states, "is the theme of this wildly poetic novel. The inspiration for Smart's classic work of prose poetry is just as famous as the book itself.