This divergence from contemporary photographic standards gave Frank difficulty at first in securing an American publisher. "Les Américains" was first published in 1958 by Robert Delpire in Paris, as part of its "Encyclopédie Essentielle" series, with texts by Simone de Beauvoir, Erskine Caldwell, William Faulkner, Henry Miller and John Steinbeck that Delpire positioned opposite Frank's photographs. It was finally published in 1959 in the United States, without the texts, by Grove Press, where it initially received substantial criticism. "Popular Photography", for one, derided his images as "meaningless blur, grain, muddy exposures, drunken horizons and general sloppiness." Though sales were also poor at first, the fact that the introduction was by the popular Kerouac helped it reach a larger audience. Over time and through its inspiration of later artists, "The Americans" became a seminal work in American photography and art history, and is the work with which Frank is most clearly identified. Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in "The Guardian" in 2014, said "it is impossible to imagine photography's recent past and overwhelmingly confusing present without his lingeringly pervasive presence." and that "The Americans" "changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it. [ . . . ] it remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century."