On 3 December 1781 Joseph Haydn dictated to his secretary a round robin letter inviting subscriptions to a new set of string quartets. The price was to be six ducats for a set of manuscript parts 'correctly copied', and Haydn assured his correspondents (surviving copies of the letter are addressed to the Swiss writer Johann Caspar Lavater in Zürich, Prince Krafft Ernst Oettingen-Wallerstein, and the Abbot of Salmannsweiler Abbey) that the new works were 'written in a new and special way', and that he had not written any quartets for ten years. The canny composer made the offer more attractive to his 'noble subscribers who live abroad' by promising them that they would receive their copies before the works were published in Vienna. In the event, Haydn's publisher Artaria upset his plan by announcing them to the Viennese public before all the manuscript copes had been sent out, much to the composer's fury. In a letter written on 4 January 1782 Haydn told them that 'such a proceeding places me in a most dishonourable position and is very damaging; it is a most usurious step on your part', and added that it had cost him more than fifty ducats. Things were eventually smoothed over and the Quartets were finally published on 17 April at the much lower price of four gulden, which explains Haydn's anger: he was afraid that his 'noble subscribers' would feel that they had been swindled, and indeed several of them seem to have complained.