Pastiche and Prejudice

Walkley's 1921 collection of essays takes up a question that still haunts writers today: what separates brilliant imitation from mere parody? His answer, delivered through luminous readings of Austen and Proust, is that pastiche is not theft but conversation - a sophisticated dialogue between the living writer and the dead masters they admire. He dissects the theatrical rehearsals where original and imitation blur, showing how performance always involves borrowing, transforming, and making something new from something old. The passage of time, Walkley argues, distorts our view of what was original in the first place; what seemed revolutionary in 1817 now reads as timeless, while our own era's innovations will seem equally dated to future readers. This isn't dry academic criticism but a writer's manual for literary pleasure - one that invites readers to see prose style as architecture, visible once you know how to look.