Henrik Ibsen: 288 books

This 1884 masterpiece may have its genesis in the hostile reception Ibsen — widely regarded as the father of modern realist drama — had received from the Norwegian public and critics for Ghosts (1881), which gave theater-goers a larger dose of truth than most were willing to bear. His next three...

A new Penguin edition of Ibsen's two great verse plays, in masterful versions by one of our greatest living poets, Geoffrey Hill. These two powerful and contrasting verse dramas by Ibsen made his reputation as a playwright. The fantastical adventures of the irrepressible Peer Gynt - poet, idler,...

Pillars of Society, Ibsen’s first major prose play (1877), explores the boundless ambition fostered during the industrial revolution and exposes the smug self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the Victorian middle class. Karsten Bernick, a successful, shrewd and calculating shipbuilder, has made himself...

Richard Eyre's high-profile adaptation of Ibsen's famous 'problem play' about a headstrong woman's determination to control those around her. Arriving home after an extended honeymoon, Hedda struggles with an existence that is, for her, devoid of excitement and enchantment. Filled with a passion...

The three plays in this volume are representative of Ibsen's extraordinary achievement as a playwright. The first is perhaps his best known work, the great dramatic poem Peer Gynt, presented here in the acclaimed translation used by the Royal Shakespeare Company for its 1982 production. With this...

Little Eyolf was written in Christiania during 1894, and published in Copenhagen on December 11 in that year. By this time Ibsen's correspondence has become so scanty as to afford us no clue to what may be called the biographical antecedents of the play. Even of anecdotic history very little attaches...

Ibsen's classic tragic masterpiece, in a new version by Richard Eyre. Helene Alving has spent her life suspended in an emotional void after the death of her cruel but outwardly charming husband. She is determined to escape the ghosts of her past by telling her son, Oswald, the truth about his...

Hedda Gabler returns, dissatisfied, from a long honeymoon. Bored by her aspiring academic husband, she foresees a life of tedious convention. And so, aided and abetted by her predatory confidante, Judge Brack, she begins to manipulate the fates of those around her to devastating effect. Brian...

The play is based on an incident that Ibsen recorded from an earlier period in his life, the attempted suicide of an army officer who had been accused of embezzlement. The Borkman family fortunes have been brought low by the imprisonment of John Gabriel who used his position as a bank manager to illegally...

A masterpiece of modern theater, Hedda Gabler is a dark psychological drama whose powerful and reckless heroine has tested the mettle of leading actresses of every generation since its first production in Norway in 1890. Ibsen's Hedda is an aristocratic and spiritually hollow woman, nearly devoid...

Ibsen's seminal play, which changed modern drama, is a searing view of a male-dominated and authoritarian society, presented with a realism that elevates theatre to a level above mere entertainment. The reverberations of Nora's slamming the door as she leaves Torvald continue to this present day....

The play is significant for its critical attitude toward 19th century marriage norms. It aroused great controversy at the time, as it concludes with the protagonist, Nora, leaving her husband and children because she wants to discover herself. Ibsen was inspired by the belief that "a woman cannot...

A portrait of idealism and democracy floundering in a society of conservatism and opportunism, considered by many to be Ibsen's dramatic masterpiece. Johannes Rosmer has resigned as parish priest following the suicide of his wife. But his increasingly liberal ideas make him an object of suspicion...

Nicholas Rudall, whose acclaimed translations of Ibsen and the Greek classic playwrights have brought a fresh perspective to the American theater, turns his talents to one of the Norwegian dramatist's most provocative plays. In a rebuke to the Victorian notion of community as well as to the blessings...