While most of Gibran's early writings were in Arabic, most of his work published after 1918 was in English. His first book for the publishing company Alfred A. Knopf, in 1918, was "The Madman," a slim volume of aphorisms and parables written in biblical cadence somewhere between poetry and prose. Gibran is considered to be the third most widely read poet in history, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.