“The New Neckcloth” — Frontispiece for Wilkie Collins’s “Mr. Wray's Cash-Box” by John Everett Millais (1852)

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Frontispiece to Wilkie Collins's “Mr. Wray's Cash-Box” (later entitled “The New Neckcloth”)

Artist: John Everett Millais

17 December 1851 [1852]

Steel-engraving

11.7 cm high by 7.3 cm wide (4 ⅝ by 2 ⅞ inches), vignetted

Wilkie Collins’s Mr. Wray's Cash Box: or, The Mask and the Mystery: A Christmas Sketch.

"Not remember it!" cried Mr. Colebatch, "we'll all remember it — all remember it together, from this time forth, in the same pleasant way!"

"How? How?" exclaimed Mr. Wray, eagerly.

"Why, my good friend!" answered the Squire, tapping him briskly on the shoulder, "we'll all remember it gaily, as nothing but a STORY FOR A CHRISTMAS FIRESIDE!" (Chapter X, "Christmas Time," 171)

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: Annie helps Martin Blunt (“Julius Caesar”) with his cravat

Let us return to the drawing-room, and the breakfast-things. “Julius Caesar,” of the creaking boots, came into the room with a small work-box (which he had been secretly engaged in making for some time past) in one hand, and a new muslin cravat in the other. It was Annie’s birth-day. The box was a present; the cravat, what the French would call, a homage to the occasion.

His first proceeding was to drop the work-box, and pick it up again in a great hurry; his second, to go to the looking glass (no such piece of furniture ornamented his loft bedroom,) and try to put on the new cravat. He had only half tied it, and was hesitating, utterly helpless, over the bow, when a light step sounded on the floor-cloth outside. Annie came in.

“Julius Caesar at the looking-glass! Oh, good gracious, what can have come to him!” exclaimed the little girl with a merry laugh.

How fresh, and blooming, and pretty she looked, as she ran up the next moment; and telling him to stoop, tied his cravat directly — standing on tiptoe. “There,” she cried, “now that’s done, what have you got to say to me, sir, on my birth-day!”

“I’ve got a box; and I'm so glad it’s your birthday,” says Julius Caesar, too confused by the suddenness of the cravat-tying to know exactly what he is talking about.

“Oh, what a splendid work-box! how kind of you, to be sure! what care I shall take of it! Come, sir, I suppose I must tell you to give me a kiss after that,” and, standing on tiptoe again, she held up her fresh rosy cheek to be kissed, with such a pretty mixture of bashfulness, gratitude, and arch enjoyment in her look, that “Julius Caesar,” I regret to say, felt inclined then and there to go down upon both his knees and worship her outright.

Before the decorous reader has time to consider all this very improper, I had better, perhaps, interpose a word, and explain that Annie Wray had promised Martin Blunt, (I give his real name again here, because this is serious business,) yes; had actually promised him that one day she would be his wife. She kept all her promises; but I can tell you she was especially determined to keep this.

Impossible! exclaims the lady reader. With her good looks she might aspire many degrees above a poor carpenter; besides, how could she possibly care about a great lumpish, awkward fellow, who is ugly, say what you will about his expression? [Chapter III, “Mr. Wray and His Family,” pp. 36-38]

Commentary: Millais’ First Published Book Illustration (17 December 1851)

In the autumn of 1851 John Everett Millais was a twenty-two-year-old member of the radical Pre-Raphelite Brotherhood (founded in 1848) who had yet to illustrate even a single volume or magazine instalment. He had, however, already painted several highly significant works, among which were Christ in the House of His Parents (1849-50) and Mariana (1850-51). What strikes the reader most about the passage realised here is the narrator's Christmas Book tone. To complement the charming domestic scene that is so characteristic of Dickens’s Christmas Books, Millais has adopted what one might call the style of "romantic realism" which he would continue to use in his later magazine and book illustrations. The young illustrator has accentuated the difference in size between the two figures for visual irony, as the petite young woman is clearly in control, and the gangly Blunt is having to comply with her instructions. The realistic poses, gestures, expressions, and costuming of the figures enforce belief, although Millais has provided minimal background detailing for the parlour (the stove and the alcove) in order to focus the reader’s attention on Annie and her fiancé.

Later, Millais's work on The Moxon Tennyson (1857) would lead to significant contracts for book illustration such as The Cornhill Magazine serialisation of Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage (January 1860 through April 1861 in sixteen monthly parts).

Related Material

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.

Bibliography

Collins, W. Wilkie. Mr. Wray’s Cash-Box: or, The Mask and the Mystery. A Christmas Sketch. Frontispiece by John Everett Millais. London: Richard Bentley, 17 December 1851. [Dated 1852]. Pp. vii + 1-171.

Collins, Wilkie. No Name [cheap edition]. Frontispiece by John Everett Millais. London: Sampson & Low, 1864.

Collins, Wilkie. The Stolen Mask: or the Mysterious Cash-Box. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, Philadelphia, 1862.

Gasson, Andrew. "Plot Summary & Publication History for Mr. Wray’s Cash-Box: Or The Mask and The Mystery: A Christmas Sketch." 2010. Accessed 13 August 2025. https://www.wilkie-collins.info/books_mr_wray.htm

Peters, Catherine. Chapter 6: "'The Fire of Artistic Ambition' (1851-1852)." The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Martin, Secker, and Warburg, 1991; rpt. Minerva, 19892. 95-114.

Created 25 August 2025