[...] When I lately sent you two stories I told you that within a month I should be ready with some Parisian news. Since I received no countermand I take it that you will not object if I enclose something of the kind. At the same time I take the liberty of enclosing also the three musical pieces for Europa. [...]
Now for a large demand [...]—I want you to provide a good publisher for an interesting book. Having been told that you are intimate with Herr von Cotta among others, you will pardon my importunity if I ask you to let him know about the following project and if possible try to persuade him to adopt it. [...] The book [...] is to be a biography of Beethoven, tracing the development of the great musical periods created by his genius, told in entertaining and perhaps fanciful style, so as to be as far as possible from being a thing of pedantic display and learned quotations, and more like a romance about an artist than a dry list of dates, although the deepest learning will underlie it. If you could [...] get the interest of Herr von Cotta or, if not his, some other intelligent bookseller's, for this project you would do an inestimable service. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 56