But the book soon met more forceful criticism from Wagner's English translator W. Ashton Ellis and Wagner's son-in-law (and major promoter of the Wagner cult at Bayreuth) Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In particular they objected to Praeger's detailed account of Wagner's involvement in the 1849 May Uprising in Dresden, which to Chamberlain's far-right-wing political opinions was deeply embarrassing. Ellis wrote a pamphlet ("1849: A Refutation") denouncing the book, and Chamberlain was successful in suppressing its German publication. Praeger's case was not helped when Chamberlain and Ellis revealed that he had fabricated or mis-represented a number of Wagner's letters that had been included in the book, often in such a way as to promote Praeger's own profile. Chamberlain had insinuated himself in the household of the Earl of Dysart in order to examine the originals of the letters. However, as the music historian Stewart Spencer points out, there was something "distinctly comical" about Chamberlain's complaints. As Chamberlain was himself "currently overseeing one of the most egregious attempts in the history of musicology to misrepresent an artist [Wagner] by systematically censoring his correspondence, to criticize Praeger ... suggests either a pot-and-kettle blindness or a deliberate attempt to divert attention". Nevertheless, Praeger's reputation has never recovered from this initial onslaught. The attack on the biography led to the resignation of Dysart from the Presidency of the London Wagner Society.