The poetic novel was not initially well received when it was published in France in 1917 as readers found the experimental structure and narrative difficult to follow. After the Armistice of 1918 it became moderately more popular, but still not very much so. Reverdy received an offer in 1924 for his work to be republished but he declined stating that he felt his work was "too clumsy". The book was only recently republished in 2016 by Wakefield Press and has since been better received: "The Three Percent" and "Poetry Salzburg Review" both praise "The Thief of Talant" as a strong translation of a complex novel.