Henrik Ibsen

"The established facts of his life, as well as some fruitful speculations, are responsibly laid out . . . Mr. de Figueiredo does a fine job of chronicling how, in their differing ways, country after country fell under Ibsen's spell."-Brad Leithauser, Wall Street Journal

"This book could be an education" -John Carey, The Sunday Times

Listed on Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles List for 2019


"Ivo de Figueiredo's luminous prose reveals the myth, the mask and the reality of the "Norwegian sphinx." Tracing Ibsen's deliberate construction of his public persona, and his careful management of his career, de Figueiredo also deftly conveys the social and cultural tensions of Ibsen's Norway while keeping his plays and their reception in close focus. An enthralling read."-Toril Moi, author of Henrik Ibsen and The Birth of Modernism

"de Figueiredo approaches Ibsen, so elusive as both man and writer, in a spirit of intense, scrupulous inquiry in which he involves his readers. His Ibsen is therefore refreshingly freed from any conventional compartmentalisation and allowed to develop, throughout his long life, in all his seeming inconsistencies and unique self-vindicating creations. Robert Ferguson's supple English prose matches the narrative movement and the emotional varieties of the Norwegian original."-Paul Binding, author of Hans Christian Andersen

"de Figueiredo's splendid biography of Ibsen ranks with those of Koht, Meyer, and Ferguson - with this difference: that he treats the man and the work as independent historical subjects so that the plays become a study of the zeitgeist, with an emphasis on their reception and transformation of European society."-Errol Durbach, author of Ibsen the Romantic