In his review he gravely noted that Trotter is a "pure figment of the imagination, wholly unlike any actual person". After his retirement from the Post Office in July 1919 Walkley added to his regular theatre reviews a series of essays published weekly in The Times on a range of subjects close to his heart; these included Jane Austen (whom some thought the only English novelist he truly loved), Dr Johnson, Dickens and Lamb. He wrote frequently about France and French topics, including the works of Proust; he was a devoted Francophile, and even cultivated a French style in his personal appearance. These Wednesday Times essays were substantial, typically about 1,500 words and occasionally well over 3,000. His fellow critic St John Ervine wrote in The Observer: Walkley drew on these articles for his three volumes of essays, Pastiche and Prejudice (1921), More Prejudice (1923), and Still More Prejudice (1925). It was a matter of pride to Walkley that Shaw dedicated Man and Superman to him, crediting him in the dedication with suggesting a Don Juan play. In a biographical article on Walkley H H Child writes: As he grew older Walkley became less enamoured of avant garde drama, finding well-made plays – French in particular – more congenial. The Times obituarist said of him, "he had his own touchstone of reality, and he liked anything that made for reality as he saw it. Vagueness and extravagance in life and in art were foreign to a mind whose ultimate test was always aesthetic." Walkley generally confined his reviewing to West End productions. His younger colleague James Agate told of a critic who, pressed by his editor to review a production in Barnes, all of six miles from central London, replied, "Sir, I respectfully submit that I am your dramatic critic for London, not for Asia Minor." Agate did not name him, but according to the publisher Rupert Hart-Davis it was Walkley. After a short illness Walkley died, aged seventy, at his country house at Brightlingsea in Essex. Notes and references Notes References Sources See also Arthur Wing Pinero St. John Hankin William Archer External links 1855 births 1926 deaths British theatre critics Civil servants from Bristol English male non-fiction writers Journalists from Bristol People from Brightlingsea Presidents of the Critics' Circle