Walter Pater is increasingly gaining recognition as a pivotal figure in nineteenth-century culture. William F. Shuter shows that Pater authorized rereadings of his work in an effort to rewrite his own literary and cultural past. Drawing on unpublished manuscript material, Shuter shows how Pater's later work can serve, paradoxically, as an introduction to the earlier. Such a rereading of Pater's work uncovers patterns of continuity and anticipation that decisively alter our understanding of Pater and his writings.