Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Henrik Ibsen, by Edmund Gosse
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Title: Henrik Ibsen
Author: Edmund Gosse
Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8152] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 20, 2003]
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Language: English
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IBSEN ***

Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger

HENRIK IBSEN
By Edmund Grosse

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
: CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
CHAPTER II
: EARLY INFLUENCES
CHAPTER III
: LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57)
CHAPTER IV
: THE SATIRES (1857-67)
CHAPTER V
: 1868-75

CHAPTER VI
: 1875-82
CHAPTER VII
: 1883-91
CHAPTER VIII
: LAST YEARS
CHAPTER IX
: PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
CHAPTER X
: INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Henrik Ibsen Ibsen in 1868 Ibsen in Dresden, October, 1873 From a
drawing by Gustav Laerum Facsimile of Ibsen's Handwriting Ibsen.
From the painting by Eilif Petersen Bust of Ibsen, about 1865

PREFACE
Numerous and varied as have been the analyses of Ibsen's works
published, in all languages, since the completion of his writings, there
exists no biographical study which brings together, on a general plan,
what has been recorded of his adventures as an author. Hitherto the
only accepted Life of Ibsen has been Et literaert Livsbillede, published
in 1888 by Henrik Jaeger; of this an English translation was issued in
1890. Henrik Jaeger (who must not be confounded with the novelist,

Hans Henrik Jaeger) was a lecturer and dramatic critic, residing near
Bergen, whose book would possess little value had he not succeeded in
persuading Ibsen to give him a good deal of valuable information
respecting his early life in that city. In its own day, principally on this
account, Jaeger's volume was useful, supplying a large number of facts
which were new to the public. But the advance of Ibsen's activity, and
the increase of knowledge since his death, have so much extended and
modified the poet's history that Et literaert Livsbillede has become
obsolete.
The principal authorities of which I have made use in the following
pages are the minute bibliographical Oplysninger of J. B. Halvorsen,
marvels of ingenious labor, continued after Halvorsen's death by Sten
Konow (1901); the Letters of Henrik Ibsen, published in two volumes,
by H. Koht and J. Elias, in 1904, and now issued in an English
translation (Hodder & Stoughton); the recollections and notes of
various friends, published in the periodicals of Scandinavia and
Germany after his death; T. Blanc's Et Bidrag til den Ibsenskte
Digtnings Scenehistorie (1906); and, most of all, the invaluable Samliv
med Ibsen (1906) of Johan Paulsen. This last-mentioned writer aspires,
in measure, to be Ibsen's Boswell, and his book is a series of chapters
reminiscent of the dramatist's talk and manners, chiefly during those
central years of his life which he spent in Germany. It is a trivial, naive
and rather thin production, but it has something of the true Boswellian
touch, and builds up before us a lifelike portrait.
From the materials, too, collected for many years past by Mr. William
Archer, I have received important help. Indeed, of Mr. Archer it is
difficult for an English student of Ibsen to speak with moderation. It is
true that thirty-six years ago some of Ibsen's early metrical writings fell
into the hands of the writer of this little volume, and that I had the
privilege, in consequence, of being the first person to introduce Ibsen's
name to the British public. Nor will I pretend for a moment that it is not
a gratification to me, after so many years and after such surprising
developments, to know that this was the fact. But, save for this accident
of time, it was Mr. Archer and no other who was really the introducer
of Ibsen to English readers. For a quarter of a century he was the

protagonist in the fight against misconstruction and