¶First published in 1887. In 1878 in Macmillan's Magazine Pater published an evocative semi-autobiographical sketch entitled 'The Child in the House' about his childhood. This was to be the first of a dozen or so "Imaginary Portraits", a genre of Pater's own invention. The portraits consist of psychological studies of fictional characters in historical settings, often personifications of new concepts at turning-points in the history of ideas or emotion.