James M. Cain is regarded as an American pioneer of the hardboiled and noir genres. Other important early American writers in the noir genre include Cornell Woolrich, Jim Thompson, Horace McCoy, and David Goodis. In the 1950s, Fawcett Books' Gold Medal imprint was instrumental in releasing noir and crime novels from such writers as Elliott Chaze, Charles Williams, Gil Brewer, Harry Whittington, Peter Rabe, and Lionel White, as well as Goodis and Thompson. In the 1980s, American publisher Black Lizard would re-release many of these works. Today, publisher Akashic Books features an elaborate line of noir short-story anthologies.