A Doll's House and Other Plays

The Pillars of Society/A Doll's House/Ghosts/An Enemy of the People

'Our home has never been anything other than a play-house. I've been your doll-wife here, just as at home I was Daddy's doll-child'

These four plays established Ibsen as the leading figure in the theatre of his day, sending shockwaves throughout Europe and beyond. A Doll's House scandalized audiences with its heroine Nora's assertion that she is 'first and foremost a human being', rather than a wife, mother or fragile doll. Ibsen's even more radical follow-up, Ghosts, exposes family secrets and sexual double-dealing, while The Pillars of Society and An Enemy of the People both explore the hypocrisy and dark tensions at the heart of society. This new translation, the first to be based on the latest critical edition of Ibsen's works, offers the best version available in English.

A new translation by Deborah Dawkin and Eril Skuggevik
With an introduction by Tore Rem
General Editor Tore Rem

About the Author

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is often called 'the Father of Modern Drama'. He was born in the small Norwegian town of Skien and started writing plays from an early age. In 1864 he left Norway for a 21-year long voluntary exile in Italy and Germany. After successes with the verse dramas Brand and Peer Gynt, he turned to prose, writing his great 12-play cycle of society dramas between 1877 and 1899. This included The Pillars of Society, A Doll's House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People,The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm,The Lady from the Sea, Hedda Gabler,The Master Builder, Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman, and, finally, When We Dead Awaken. Ibsen died in Norway at the age of seventy-eight.