Dear Friend!
I beg you to confer at once in my name with Herr Musikhändler M. on the following subject.
Some time ago the musician Mehnert discovered, after a personal search, that there was still a supply of forty-two copies of my score of Tannhäuser in X.'s warehouse. Of these he revised thirty-two. Herr M. should now explain what has become of the other ten. At that time I gave him instructions that no copy should be sold any more through the music traders to private individuals, as these copies were my private property, and did not belong to the general body of publications I had surrendered. I learnt also that my instructions were carried out, since I received repeated proof that private individuals had wished to buy the score from the business, but had been there refused. Relying on this, and firmly believing that my instructions had been followed to the letter, I asked Härtels to engrave a new edition of the score, because all the copies were exhausted; all the same I was bound, in return for their great sacrifice, to show them that the score was still, to some extent, a source of profit, and I therefore mentioned that for the last five years no copies had been delivered to private individuals through the music trade, although there had been repeated inquiries for them. Hereupon Härtels assure me, however, that I must certainly be misinformed, as only last year they themselves obtained a score through the music business. Herr M. might give me some explanation of this. If he has been forced by the other side to go on selling my scores, he ought at least to have given me notice of it; and if he has sold all the ten copies at present missing, that is a point about which we must have a settlement. Anyhow, I want in this case, at least and first, a formal declaration in writing from Herr M. that he really possesses no more copies of the score, and thus will not sell any more. I want this declaration in order to induce Härtels to undertake the great cost of the new edition of the score which has now become necessary. I beg you to deliver the declaration to my wife, for her to forward to Härtels.
Hearty greetings from your
Rich. Wagner.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 151