A great admirer of Richard Wagner, the music publisher Emil Heckel (1831-1908) founded the first Wagner Society in Mannheim in 1871. His purpose was to inspire others to help raise the necessary funds for the inaugural Bayreuth Festival. 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, he published in 1899 this English translation of Heckel's memoirs (originally edited by his son Karl), interwoven with letters from Wagner to Heckel, who is described by the composer as his...