[2] Later it was included in the poetic book Básně noci (Poems of the Night) which was published in 1930.
[3] The main hero of the poem is American inventor Thomas Alva Edison, considered by the author to be a modern genius.
Nezval's work is a praise of human activity, technology, and science, but also an expression of anxiety about civilisation.
[6] After Edison's death in 1931 Nezval wrote Signál času (Signal of time) which is an elegy.
[8] Nezval's Edison was probably influenced by Guillaume Apollinaire's work, especially the poem Zone, which was translated into Czech by Karel Čapek.