Family Letters of Richard Wagner

William Ashton Ellis (1852–1919) abandoned his medical career in order to devote himself to his Wagner studies. Best known for his translations of Wagner's prose works and of Carl Friedrich Glasenapp's multi-volume biography of the composer, Ellis published in 1911 this English translation of Wagner's Familienbriefe, spanning the years 1832–74. An inveterate letter writer, Wagner was the youngest-but-one of ten children and Ellis describes the character of these letters to his sisters, his ...