Henrik Ibsen

A collection of some of Ibsen's best known works, examining social problems as well as giving insights into Ibsen's own personal life.

"Brand was Ibsen's first masterpiece, a poetic drama composed in 1865 and published to tremendous critical and popular acclaim. The unsparing vision of a priest driven by faith to risk and witness the deaths of his wife and child gives Brand its icy ferocity. When he was writing it in Italy, Ibsen declared: 'It is blessedly peaceful out here; no one I know; I read nothing but the Bible ... ' Geoffrey Hill provides a new Preface to this third and revised...

"An incendiary new play that picks up fifteen years after the conclusion of Henrik Ibsen's legendary portrait of a marriage in crisis"--

"The three plays in this voluem cover the period during which Ibsen was preoccupied with realistic problems of personal and social morality. In 'The pillars of the community', partly by means of symbolism, he exposes the effects of a lie told to preeserve a man's public reputation. The solution -- to admit the truth -- scarcely seemed so simple seven years later, when Ibsen complete 'The wild duck' in apparent disillusionment. 'Hedda Gabler', the...

"With her assertion that she is 'first and foremost a human being,' rather than a wife, mother or fragile doll, Nora Helmer sent shockwaves throughout Europe when she appeared in Henrik Ibsens greatest and most famous play, A Dolls House. Ibsens follow-up, Ghosts, was no less radical, with its unrelenting investigation into religious hypocrisy, family secrets, and sexual double-dealing. These two masterpieces are accompanied here by The Pillars of...

This collection ranges from the impassioned exposure of hypocrisy and deception in Pillars of Society to the near-dreamlike symbolism of When We Dead Awaken, and presents the masterpieces of a writer and thinker who blended detailed realism with a startingly bold imagination, infusing prose with poetic power, and drama with undying relevance and meaning. -- From publisher's description.