[...] I should have liked to write to you more at leisure about the publishing affair. Still I will just touch hastily upon the main issue. I should be willing to sign a contract for a division of the profits, but how in the world could I be sure that I should not be cheated, unless the publisher were my special friend? No one believes in the honesty of a publisher in the rôle of publisher. My own experience has not been fortunate in this regard. Härtel's idea was to share the profits on Lohengrin. Pianoforte arrangements of this opera have now been selling all over Europe and America for years and yet Härtel's—have not drawn enough profits to have aught to share with me!! How such businesses are maintained, how Härtel's are able to keep a house over their heads and pay for clothes, must remain a riddle if nothing accrues from such undertakings even after ten years.—My mind would be more at ease if, provisionally, there were to be only a small edition of five hundred copies, but, on the one hand, I hold so small an edition unpractical, for naturally the thing would only be sent to musical managers and other musicians—and would not reach the right people, while, on the other, are you willing to stand surety to me that, in case of a big demand, Weber would not issue a fresh edition without saying anything to me—or would not have a greater number printed from the first? I am afraid that on these lines I shall never draw a penny from my Nibelung poem! I would accept these conditions, and others like them, if you would publish the work. Think it over! If you can do it, my doubts will be allayed. I really have reason to put little trust in publishers, etc. Only think that I am still out of pocket on the publication of Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser!! Is not my mistrust fully justified? [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 473