Title page of the first edition of Mr Wray's Cash-Box, published by Richard Bentley. Although dated 1852, the book was published on 13 December 1851.He wrote to a friend earlier that year 

"On Friday morning last, an idea came into my head for a Christmas Book - I tell it you, mind, as a profound secret - don't say a word about it to anybody. If I am to put this new notion into shape and form this year, I must work night and day; and I mean to do so."

Bentley had published Wilkie's previous two books and would publish his next two. He published four more in the early 1870s. 
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