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First performed in 1882, “Ghosts” is the controversial and tragic play by the famed Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is the story of Helen Alving, a wealthy widow who was unhappily married to her unfaithful husband. Helen has tried to shelter her son, Oswald, from the corrupting influence of his father’s immoral behavior and has sent him away only to discover that he is suffering from syphilis inherited from his father. Oswald has also unfortunately fallen in love with Regina, his mother’s maid, who is revealed to be Oswald’s illegitimate half-sister. Oswald is heartbroken and asks his mother to help him end his life with an overdose of morphine, as he fears slipping into a vegetative state as his disease progresses. “Ghosts” is a scathing indictment of Victorian society in which Ibsen refutes the notion that if one simply fulfills one’s duty according to the morals of the time then a good and noble life is guaranteed. Scandalous in its day for its frank discussion of venereal disease, marital infidelity, incest, and euthanasia, “Ghosts” continues to resonant with modern audiences for its intense psychological drama and sharp social criticism. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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Collected together here is a selection of six plays by Norway’s most famous playwright, arguably one the greatest playwrights of all-time, Henrik Ibsen. In the first play of the volume, “Pillars of Society”, Ibsen relates the story of Karsten Bernick, whose ambitious plan to connect his small coastal town by railway is jeopardized when his past comes back to haunt him. In the second play, “A Doll’s House”, we have the story of Nora Helmer, who has secretly borrowed a large sum of money to help her husband recover from a serious illness, by forging her father’s signature, and the turmoil that it causes in her life and marriage. The third play, “Ghosts”, is an intense psychological drama concerning Helen Alving, a wealthy widow, and her son Oswald, who suffers the tragic consequences of his late father’s infidelity. In the fourth play, “An Enemy of the People”, Ibsen explores the animosity that can befall someone whose actions, while in the best interest of the public good, threaten the economic well being of a community. Fifthly there is “Hedda Gabler”, the story of a self-centered and manipulative woman who has grown bored of her new marriage to the kind and reliable George. Lastly in “The Master Builder” Ibsen tells the tale of Halvard Solness, a successful small town architect who is encouraged to confront his acrophobia, with tragic consequences. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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Performed for the first time in 1891, “Hedda Gabler” is one of Henrik Ibsen’s greatest dramas. It is the story of its title character, Hedda, a self-centered and manipulative woman who has grown bored of her new marriage to the kind and reliable George. Hedda was born to a life of luxury and privilege and marries a man she does not love to avoid becoming a spinster. After returning from her honeymoon, Hedda discovers that her marriage will not be the life of wealth and excitement she was accustomed to and that George will never be the ambitious and successful man she wishes him to be. To escape her boredom, she begins to meddle in the lives of George’s academic rival, Eilert, who is Hedda’s former paramour, and Eilert’s unsuspecting wife, Thea. Hedda fears that Eilert and his professional success may stand in the way of George’s future in academia and Hedda takes it upon herself to sabotage her husband’s rival, leading to truly tragic consequences for everyone involved. Marked by one of the most dramatic female roles in all of theater, “Hedda Gabler” stands as an enduring masterpiece by Norway’s most famous playwright, Henrik Ibsen. This edition includes a biographical afterword, follows the translation of Edmund Gosse and William Archer, with an introduction by William Archer.

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First performed in 1882, Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” is the story of the animosity that can befall someone whose actions, while in the best interest of the public good, threaten the economic well being of a community. The story begins during an evening of entertaining at the household of Dr. Stockmann, the titular “enemy of the people”. When the mayor of the town, Dr. Stockmann’s brother Peter, and the editor of the town newspaper, Hovstad, come to Dr. Stockmann’s home, he is confronted over the rumors that the water of the town baths may be contaminated. The two brothers argue over the morality of concealing or falsely shaping the narrative in regards to the problem. When a letter arrives confirming the contamination, Dr. Stockmann convinces Hovstad that he must publish the report, which sets into motion a great conflict amongst the townspeople over the financial cost of dealing with the contamination. In this tensely dramatic work we find Ibsen at his best in addressing the economic consequences of doing the right thing. This edition follows the translation of R. Farquharson Sharp, includes an introduction by Otto Heller, and a biographical afterword.

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"Wallace Shawn is one of the most complex and uncompromising moralists of the American theater." – Ben Brantley, New York Times"At once the U.S.'s most profound and overlooked playwright." – David HareThis translation and adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Master Builder Solness by Wallace Shawn, a writer known for his own bleakly hilarious and provocative plays, was used by legendary director André Gregory during fifteen years of work on a theatrical production which, instead of being produced as a play, was made into a film by Jonathan Demme—a film that is an utterly contemporary vision of Ibsen's classic play.

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The innovative dramas of Henrik Ibsen created a sensation among 19th-century audiences with their mordant attacks on social conventions. Among the finest of these ground-breaking works was Ghosts, first performed in 1881. In it, the playwright assailed the hypocrisy of moral codes, offering a daring treatment of such then-taboo issues as infidelity, venereal disease, and illegitimacy. Ibsen substituted the modern scientific idea of heredity for the ancient Greek concept of fate, exposing hidden sins of the past as the roots of corruption.The sins of the past are at the heart of the play, whose haunted heroine, Mrs. Helen Alving, has accepted her pastor's counsel and endured her husband's many infidelities in silence. Ten years after Alving's death, she is to dedicate an orphanage in his memory. Her son Oswald, kept innocent of his father's profligacy, returns home for the dedication. Oswald's attraction to the housemaid — in reality, his half-sister — conjures up the ghost of his parents' unhappy marriage. This disastrous romance, along with Oswald's increasing symptoms of the venereal disease inherited from his father, force Mrs. Alving to confront her own «ghosts.»A powerful and engrossing psychological drama, Ghosts serves as an excellent entrée to Ibsen's other works and helps confirm his status as «the father of modern drama.»

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Widely regarded as one of the foremost dramatists of the nineteenth century, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) brought the social problems and ideas of his day to center stage. Creating realistic plays of psychological conflict that emphasized character over cunning plots, he frequently inspired critical objections because his dramas deemed the individual more important than the group.In this powerful work, Ibsen places his main characters, Dr. Thomas Stockman, in the role of an enlightened and persecuted minority of one confronting an ignorant, powerful majority. When the physician learns that the famous and financially successful baths in his hometown are contaminated, he insists they be shut down for expensive repairs. For his honesty, he is persecuted, ridiculed, and declared an «enemy of the people» by the townspeople, included some who have been his closest allies.First staged in 1883, An Enemy of the People remains one of the most frequently performed plays by a writer considered by many the «father of modern drama.» This easily affordable edition makes available to students, teachers, and general readers a major work by one of the world's great playwrights.

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One of the best-known, most frequently performed of modern plays, A Doll's House richly displays the genius with which Henrik Ibsen pioneered modern, realistic prose drama. In the central character of Nora, Ibsen epitomized the human struggle against the humiliating constraints of social conformity. Nora's ultimate rejection of a smothering marriage and life in «a doll's house» shocked theatergoers of the late 1800s and opened new horizons for playwrights and their audiences.But daring social themes are only one aspect of Ibsen's power as a dramatist. A Doll's House shows as well his gifts for creating realistic dialogue, a suspenseful flow of events and, above all, psychologically penetrating characterizations that make the struggles of his dramatic personages utterly convincing. Here is a deeply absorbing play as readable as it is eminently playable, reprinted from an authoritative translation.

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The Lady From The Sea (1888) marked a turning-point in Ibsen’s writing career as it, and the plays that followed it, concerned itself more with individual destinies than with general moral or social principles. In this new translation, Pam Gems (best known for plays such as Piaf, Stanley, Camille and Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi) gives this classic drama a refreshing new life. The Lady From The Sea was performed at the Almeida Theatre, 8th May 2003.

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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 are Romersholm, in which Ibsen unmasks the moral evasions which prevent us from being truly free, and When We Dead Waken, in which a figure from the past rises to haunt an ageing artist. These distinctive translations are accompanied by an introductory foreword and are followed by notes on pronunciations and other details and aspects of Ibsen's original texts

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