[...] Your flattering and gratifying offer to publish a dramatic musical work of mine, comes at a moment which I can only call both favourable and unfavourable. Favourable—because I actually have a work on hand which I should like to see published soon, unfavourable—because I am still unable to enter Germany, and the consequent obstacles to a first theatrical production of my new work, at which it is absolutely essential that I should be present personally, cannot but set bounds to the eagerness of my publisher. Under these persistently unfavourable circumstances, I cannot quite make up my mind to forgo, for the sake of my wish to see my work published soon, the advantages which I am convinced will accrue if I wait for the moment when I can personally call my operas into being upon the stage.
I could only come to an agreement with a publisher who, like myself, had faith in the destiny of my more mature works, was able to see beyond present obstacles, and would be content, for sole guarantee, with the success of my earlier works, which for a long time were thought impracticable and which have now a wide circulation that surprises even myself. If I further consider how much there is at present in favour of the publication of my later works, and if I may suppose that interest in them is so considerable that they will be in exceptional demand even before they appear on the stage, I think I may hold that the time has come to discuss the matter seriously with a publisher of your standing. Under the conditions indicated above, I reply to your very kind offer with the counter-offer of a music-drama, The Rhinegold. I am particularly desirous at the moment that this work should be published, because, while the issue of Tristan and Isolde marks my first reappearance after a considerable interval as a creative artist, I want to represent myself in as "rational" a guise as may be to the educated public, and The Rhinegold belongs to a genre very different from that of Tristan, revealing quite a new side of my art—I might call it the "characteristically popular"—not hinted at in any of my earlier works. Consequently the appearance of this work, following hard upon Tristan, would be very opportune for me.
If you should be willing to have patience and allow me up to two years to bring off a first theatrical performance of this work, I would indicate the conditions upon which I would place it in your hands briefly as follows:
For an honorarium of 10,000 francs, payable at once, I am willing to sell you the score and the completed and very successful pianoforte arrangement of my music-drama, The Rhinegold, with the right of publishing this work in Germany, France and England, only reserving to myself the right of regulating theatrical performances. All you would have to pay to the author of the pianoforte arrangement, Herr Charles Klindworth, of London, would be the usual honorarium for such work reckoned by the page. You would have the right to issue a cheap edition of the libretto for sale for the purpose of theatrical performances, but with the express reservation that you must come to an agreement on this point with that publisher with whom I shall reserve the right to negotiate for a special de luxe edition of my great dramatic poem, The Ring of the Nibelungs, to be published as a literary work apart from the music. The Rhinegold is an integral and independent part of this dramatic poem, which I hope to get published shortly by a publisher of high standing. Finally, it might be left to your discretion as to whether you should issue the score at once, or whether you would prefer to wait until the first theatrical performance is assured, which I undertake shall be in two years' time at latest. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 449