Berryman's first major work, in which he began to develop his own style, was "Homage to Mistress Bradstreet". In the long, title poem, which first appeared in "Partisan Review" in 1953, Berryman addresses the 17th-century American poet Anne Bradstreet, combining her life history with his fantasies about her (and inserting himself into the poem). Joel Athey noted, "This difficult poem, a tribute to the Puritan poet of colonial America, took Berryman five years to complete and demanded much from the reader when it first appeared with no notes. "The Times Literary Supplement" hailed it as a path-breaking masterpiece; poet Robert Fitzgerald called it 'the poem of his generation.'" Edward Hirsch observed that "the 57 stanzas of "Homage to Mistress Bradstreet" combine the concentration of an extended lyric with the erudition and amplitude of a historical novel".