"... And what does it mean, then to be a poet? It was a long time before I realized that to be a poet means essentially to see, but mark well, to see in such a way that whatever is seen is perceived by the audience just as the poet saw it. But only what has been lived through can be seen in that way and accepted in that way. And the secret of modern literature lies precisely in this matter of experiences that are lived through. All that I have written these last ten years, I have lived through spiritually." ('Speech to the Norwegian Students, September 10, 1874, from Speeches and New Letters, 1910)Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien, a tiny coastal town in the south of Norway. His father, Knud Ibsen, was a prosperous merchant, whose financial failure changed the family's social position. Later Ibsen bitterly recalled how his father's friends broke all connections with him and the "Altenburg Manor", earlier known for its dinners and festivities. In disgrace the family moved to Venstøp farmhouse, provided to them by the creditors.
As a child Ibsen dreamed of becoming an artist. His mother, Marichen Cornelia Martine Altenburg, was an avid painter, and she loved theatre. Ibsen's education was interrupted by poverty and at the age of 15 he was apprenticed to a pharmacist in Grimstad. In 1846 he was compelled to support an illegitimate child born to a servant girl. Ibsen moved in 1850 to Christiania (now Oslo), where he attended Heltberg's "student factory", an irregular school for university candidates, and occasionally earned from his journalistic writings. In the same year he wrote two plays, Catiline, a tragedy, which reflected the atmosphere of the revolutionary year of 1848, and The Burial Mound, written under the pseudonym of Brynjolf Bjarme. Ibsen hoped to become a physician, but failed university entrance examinations.
Cataline sold only a few copies but The Burial Mound was performed three times in 1850. The first performance of Cataline did not take place until 1881. After successfully performing a poem glorifying Norway's past, Ibsen was appointed in 1851 by Ole Bull as "stage poet" of Den Nationale Scene, a small theater in Bergen. During this period Ibsen staged more than 150 plays, becoming thoroughly acquainted with the techniques of professional theatrical performances. In addition to his managerial work he also wrote four plays based on Norwegian folklore and history, notably Lady Inger of Ostrat (1855), dealing with the liberation of medieval Norway. In 1852 his theater sent him on a study tour to Denmark and Germany.
Ibsen returned in 1857 to Christiania to continue as artistic director of the new Norwegian (Norske) Theatre. In 1858 he married Suzannah Thoresen, the stepchild of the novelist Magdalene Thoresen. Their only child, Sigurd, was born next year. After many productions, the theater went bankrupt, and Ibsen was appointed to the Christiania Theatre. To this period belong The Vikings of Helgoland (1858) and The Pretenders (1864), both historical sagas, and Love's Comedy (1862), a satire. Several of Ibsen's plays failed to attract audience. These drawbacks contributed to his decision to move abroad.
In 1864 Ibsen received an award for foreign travel from the government, and also had financial help from Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. He left Norway for Italy in April, and traveled abroad for the next 27 years, returning to Norway only for brief visits. During this time, when he lived in Rome, Munich and Dresden, Ibsen wrote most of his best-known works, among others Brand, inspired by Kierkegaard's idea of subjectivity as truth. The symbolic tragedy tells about a priest, who follows his high principles at the cost of the lives of his child and his wife. Its theme, an individual with his God-given mission pitted against society, reflected Ibsen's disappointment in weak and spineless politicians.
Brand's firm belief is "No compromise!". At the end Brand admits his own weakness and is buried by an avalanche. Peer Gynt(1867), written mostly in Southern Italy, in Ischia and in Sorrento, was a satiric fantasy about a boastful egoist, irresponsible young man, an Ulyssean figure from Norwegian folklore. In both of these works the romantic hero is destroyed and their "ideal demands" are crushed. No doubt the themes also rose from Ibsen's disillusionment with his countrymen. In 1865 he wrote to Björnson: "If I were to tell at this moment what has been the chief result of my stay abroad, I should say that it consisted in my having driven out of myself the aestheticism which had a great power over me – an isolated aestheticism with a claim to independent existence. Aestheticism of this kind seems to me now as a great curse to poetry as theology is to religion."
Ibsen himself considered The Emperor and the Galilean (1873) his most important play. However, this heavy drama about Christianity and paganism in generally not included among his most important achievements. Pillars of Society (1877) dealt with a wealthy and hypocritical businessman, whose perilous course almost results in the death of his son. A Doll´s House (1879) was a social drama, which caused a sensation and toured Europe and America. In the play a woman refuses to obey her husband and walks out from her apparently perfect marriage, her life in the "doll's house". At the turn-of-the-century physicians used Nora, whose mood changes from joy to depression in short cycles of time, as an example of "female hysteria". Later Havelock Ellis, inspired by Nora's character, saw in her "the promise of a new social order."
In An Enemy of the People (1882) Ibsen attacked "the compact liberal majority" and the mass opinion. Arthur Miller's adaptation from 1950 was a clear statement of resistance to conformity. "The majority," says the honest and brave Dr. Stockmann, "is never right until it does right." Ghosts (1881) touched the forbidden subject of hereditary venereal disease. The London Daily Telegraphcalled the play "an open drain; a loathsome sore unbandaged; a dirty act done publicly; a lazar house with all its doors and windows open." Again a bourgeois façade hides moral decay and guilt. Mrs. Alving, the widow of the respected Captain Alving, has to reveal to her son Oswald the ugly truth about his disease. Eventually she has to decide whether or not to euthanize his son, whose mind has disintegrated.
Hedda Gabler (1890) was a study of a neurotic woman. Oscar Wilde, after attending the play, wrote: "I felt pity and terror, as though the play had been Greek." Hedda, twenty-nine years old, has married down, is pregnant with an unwanted child, and bored by her husband. Before marriage she has flirted with the drunken poet Loevborg, a portrait of the playwright Strindberg, who hated Ibsen. She plots to the ruin of Loevborg by burning his manuscript on the future of civilization. Judge Brack, who lusts after Hedda, discovers that Hedda has instigated Loevborg's accidental suicide - he has died in a bordello. Hedda cries: "Oh, why does everything I touch become mean and ludicrous? It's like a curse!" Brack gives her the choice either of public exposure or of becoming his mistress. But Hedda chooses suicide when she falls into his power.
In 1866 Ibsen received poet's annual stipend. He also had royalties from his dramatic poem Brand, his first financially successful drama. With the receipt of a new grant, he visited Stockholm, dined with the King, and later represented Norway at the opening of the Suez Canal. In the 1870s he worked with the composer Edward Grieg on the premiere of Peer Gynt. Grieg had met Ibsen in Rome in 1866; the play was written a year after their meeting. They never became close but Ibsen felt that the busy conductor and virtuoso pianist had a real understanding of his work. In January 1874 he commissioned Grieg to provide incidental music for the play, which he never intended to be staged. The assignment was completed in September of the following year and was premiered in Oslo, together with a revised stage version of the drama, on February 24, 1876. Both the author and the composer were surprised by its success.
When Ibsen spent a couple months in Norway during the summer of 1874, Norwegian students marched in procession to his home to greet him. In reply Ibsen said: "For a student has essentially the same task as the poet: to make clear to himself, and thereby to others, the temporal and eternal questions which are astir in the age and in the community to which he belongs." (from Speeches and New Letters)
Ibsen returned to Norway in 1891 and continued to write until a stroke in 1900. His marriage was joyless, but he had a few episodes of friendship with young women. In 1898 Ibsen received the world's homage on the occasion of his 70th birthday. George Bernard Shaw called him the greatest living dramatist in a lecture entitled 'The Quintessence of Ibsenism'. Ibsen's son married Bjørnson's daughter Bergliot. The marriage built a bridge of friendship between the two writers. Their relationship had broken after Ibsen's play The League of Youth (1869), where the central character resembled Bjørnson. Ibsen died in Christiania on May 23, 1906.
Ibsen's final years were clouded by mental illness. When We Dead Awaken (1899), his last dramatic effort, showed the influence of Strindberg. James Joyce, who was from his student days a great admirer of Ibsen's work, published a laudatory essay on the play in the 1 April 1900 issue of the Fortnightly Review. It was Joyce's first published piece. A supposedly unknown Ibsen play, entitled The Sun God, surfaced in 2006 and an antiquarian bookshop in Oslo was offered a chance to buy it. After police investigation, a Norwegian scriptwriter and actor was charged in 2011 for forging writings and documents that allegedly originated from Ibsen and Knut Hamsun.
"A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view." (from Ibsen's Workshop, 1912)Ibsen wrote for and about the middle class and life in the suburbs and small towns. He focused on characters and psychological conflicts rather than dramatic situations. His central theme was the duty of the individual towards himself, not the out-of-date conventions of bourgeois society. "I have really never had a strong feeling for solidarity," Ibsen said to Brandes in 1871. Ibsen's anarchistic individualism made a deep impression on the younger generation outside Norway, where he was considered a progressive writer. In his home country, however, Ibsen was seen as a moral preacher and more conservative than Björnson. Ibsen's discipline or successor was George Bernard Shaw, who dramatized with flair and wit generally accepted ideas into uncompromising plays.
Peer Gynt (1867), a verse drama. The hero is the legendary Peer Gynt of Norwegian Folklore. Peer is a young peasant farmer, a liar and opportunist, the antithesis of Brand¾he has no calling. He attends the country wedding feast, where he meets Solveig, a girl who is deeply attracted to him. Peer kidnaps the bride and later abandons her in the wilderness. A fugitive now, Peer experiences, like Sinbad the sailor, amazing adventures in many lands. He courts and then abandons the daughter of the Troll King. Before fleeing the country, he visits Aase, his aged mother, whose death he softens by a fantasy of a sleigh ride into an imaginary heaven. In his middle life Peer ships missionaries and idols to China, and becomes a slave trader. "To be creator of the universe, / So I need gold if I'm to play / The emperor's part with any force." He makes and loses money, and saves his own life in a shipwreck by letting another drown. Eventually Peer returns to Norway, old and embittered by his fruitless odyssey. He comes up before the Button Molder, who tells that "Friend, it's melting time," and tries to melt him in his ladle. Peer asks what is "to be yourself" and the Button Molder answers: "To be yourself is to slay yourself." Peer is horrified at the idea of losing his precious identity. However, he is saved from oblivion by the redeeming love Solveig, who has waited for him faithfully and in whose mind he has existed as a real personality. Peer discovers his reason for being in her forgiving arms. Incidental music accompany the play was composed by Edward Grieg. - "Whatever his critics think, Ibsen does not regard Peer as a failure or a hollow man. Faust, Part Two is an even greater dramatic poem than Peer Gynt, but unlike Faust, Peer is the triumphant representation of a personality. What Ibsen values in Peer is what we should value: the idiosyncratic that refuses to be melted down into the reductive or the commonplace..." (Harold Bloom in The Western Canon, 1994)
Selected works:
- Catilina, 1850 (prod. 1882)
- Catiline (translated by Anders Orbeck, in Early Plays, 1921; Thomas F. van Laan, 1992) - Kjæmpehøjen, 1850 (prod. 1850, publ. 1902)
- The Warrior's Barrow (translated by Anders Orbeck, in Early Plays, 1921) / The Burial Mound (translated by Thomas F. van Laan, 1992) - Sancthansnatten, 1852 (prod. 1852, publ. 1909)
- St. John's Night (translated by James and Kathleen McFarlane, in The Oxford Ibsen I, 1960) - Fru Inger til Østeraad, 1855 (prod., publ. 1857, rev. ed., 1874)
- Lady Inger of Østraat (translated by Charles Archer, in Prose Dramas, 1890) / Lady Inger ( translated by Graham Orton, in The Oxford Ibsen I, 1960)
- Inger, Östråtin rouva (suom. Joel Lehtonen, 1919) - Gildet paa Solhoug, 1856 (prod. 1856)
- The Feast at Solhaus (translated by William Archer and Mary Morison, in Collected Works, 1908)
- Päiväkummun pidot (suom. Aarni Kouta, 1923) - Olaf Liljekrans, 1857 (written, publ. 1898)
- Olaf Liljekrans (translated by Anders Orbeck, in Early Plays, 1921) - Hærmændene paa Helgeland, 1857 (prod. 1858)
- The Vikings at Helgeland (translated by William Archer, in Prose Dramas, 1890) / The Warriors at Helgeland (translated by R. Farquharson-Sharp, 1911; James McFarlane, in The Oxford Ibsen 2, 1962)
- Helgelannin sankarit (suom. C. Edv. Törmänen, 1878) - Kjærlighedens Komedie, 1862 (written, prod. 1873)
- Love's Comedy (translated by C.H. Herford, 1900; R. Farquharson-Sharp, 1915; Jens Arup, 1962)
- Rakkauden komedia (suom. Aarni Kouta, 1915) - Kongs-Emnerne, 1863 (prod., publ. 1864)
- The Pretenders ( translated by William Archer, in Prose Dramas, 1890; R. Farquharson-Sharp, 1913)
- Kuninkaan alut (suom. Ellei, 1884; K.S. Laurila, 1963) - Brand, 1866 (produced in part, 1866, complere version, 1885)
- Brand (translated by William Wilson, 1891; C.H. Herford; 1894; F.E. Garrett, 191?; J.M. Olberman, 1912; Miles Menander Dawson, 1916; Michael Meyer, 1960; Geoffrey Hill, 1978 )
- Brand (suom. Kasimir Leino, 1896; Aale Tynni, 1947; Lauri Sipari, 1986) - Peer Gynt, 1867 (prod. 1876)
- Peer Gynt (translated by William Archer and Charles Archer, 1892; R. Ellis Roberts; 1912; R. Farquharson Sharp, 1925; Norman Ginsbury, 1945; Paul Green, 1951; Michael Meyer, 1963; Rolf Fjelde, 1965; Peter Watts, 1966; Christopher Fry and Johan Fillinger, 1970; David Rudkin, 1983; Frank McGuinness and Anne Bamborough, 1990; John Northam, 1993)
- Peer Gynt (suom. Otto Manninen, 1911; Terttu Halla, 1972; Pentti Saarikoski, 1981)
- films: 1941, dir. by David Bradley, starring Charton Heston; television series 1971, dir. by Peter Stein, starring Bruno Ganz - De unges Forbund, 1869 (prod., publ.)
- The League of Youth (translated by S.H. Landes, in Prose Dramas, 1890; Peter Watts, 1965) / The League of theYouth (translated by Andy Barrett, 2011) - Kejser og Galilæer, 1864-1873 (prod. in part, 1896)
- The Emperor and the Galilean (translated by Catherine Ray, 1876; Graham Orton, 1963) / Emperor and Galilean: A World Historical Drama (translated by Brian Johnston, 1999) / Emperor and Galilean (translated by Ben Power, 211) - Digte, 1871 (augmented edition, 1875)
- Samfundets støtter, 1871 (prod., publ.)
- Pillars of Society (translated by William Archer and Eleanor Marx-Aveling, in The Pillars of Society, and Other Plays, 1888; Norman Ginsbury, 1962) / The Pillars of the Community (translated by Una Ellis-Fermor, in Hedda Gabler, and Other Plays, 1950) / Pillars of the Community (translated by Samuel Adamson, 2005)
- Yhteiskunnan tukeet (suom. Pio Talmaa, 1884) / Yhteiskunnan pylväät (suom. Joel Lehtonen, 1916) / Yhteiskunnan tukipylväät (suom. Eino ja Katri Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 4, 1962; Lauri Sipari, 2001)
- film adaptations: 1916, dir. by Raoul Walsh; 1937: Stützen der Gesellschaft, dir. by Detlef Sierck/Douglas Sirk - Et dukkehjem, 1879 (prod., publ.)
- Nora (translated by T. Weber, 1880) / A Doll's House (translated by R. Farquharson Sharp and Eleanor Marx-Aveling, 1910; William Archer and others, in The Collected Works of Henrik Ibsen, 1906-12; Eva Le Gallienne, 1957; Nicholas Rudall, 1999; Michael Meyer, 2000)
- Nora (suom. Karl Alexander Slöör, 1880) / Nukkekoti (suom. Maila Talvio, 1913; Eino Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 4, 1962; Auli Viikari, 1979; Lauri Sipari, 2001)
- film adaptations: 1918, dir. by Maurice Tourneur; 1922, dir. by Charles Bryant, starring Alla Nazimova, Alan Hale; film Nora 1944, dir. by Harald Brown; television film 1959, dir. by George Schaefer, starring Christopher Plummer, Julie Harris, Jason Robards, Hume Cronyn; 1973, dir. by Joseph Losey, starring Jane Fonda; 1973, dir. by Patrick Garland, starring Claire Bloom; 1973, Nora Helmer, dir. by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, starring Margit Carstensen, Joachim Hansen - Gengangere, 1881 (prod., publ.)
- Ghosts (translated by William Archer and Eleanor Marx-Aveling, in The Pillars of Society, and Other Plays, 1888; R. Farquharson-Sharp, 1911; Eva Le Gallienne, 1957; Peter Watts, in Ghosts, and Other Plays, 1964; Christopher Hampton, 1983; Arthur Kopit, 1984; Lanford Wilson, 2004)
- Kummittelijoita (suom. Elias Erkko, 1886) / Kummittelijat (suom. Eino ja Katri Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 4, 1962) / Aaveita (suom. Arja Kantele, 2001)
- films: 1915, dir. by George Nicholls, prod. by D.W. Griffith; television film 1986, dir. by Elijah Moshinsky, starring Judi Dench, Michael Gambon, Kenneth Branagh, Natasha Richardson - En folkefiende, 1882 (prod. 1883)
- An Enemy of Society (translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, in The Pillars of Society and Other Plays, 1888) / An Enemy of the People (adaptation by Arthur Miller, 1951; translated Eva Le Gallienne, 1957; James Walter McFarlane, 1960; Max Faber, 1970; Michael Meyer, 1970; Nicholas Rudall, 1970; Stephen Mulrine, 2011) / A Public Enemy (translated by Peter Watts, in Ghosts, and Other Plays, 1964)
- Kansanvihollinen (suom. Eino ja Katri Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 5, 1962)
- films: 1937, Ein Volksfeind , dir. by Hans Steinhof; 1977, dir. by George Schaefer, Arthur Miller's version of the play, starring Steve McQueen and and Bibi Anderson; 1980, written and directed by Satyajit Ray, starring Soumitra Guhathakurta, Mamata Shankar, Dipanlar Dey; 2003, dir. by Erik Skjoldbjærg, starring Jørgen Langhelle, Trine Wiggen, Sven Nordin, Pia Tjelta, Per Jansen - Vildanden, 1884 (prod. 1885)
- The Wild Duck (translated by Frances E. Archer, in Prose Dramas, 1890; R. Farquharson Sharp and Eleanor Marx-Aveling, 1910; Una Ellis-Fermor, in Hedda Gabler, and Other Plays, 1950; Eva Le Gallienne, 1957; James Walter McFarlane, 1960; Michael Meyer, 1968; Christopher Hampton, 1980; Kai Jurgensen and Robert Schenkkan, 1987 )
- Villisorsa (suom. Eino Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 5, 1962; Auli Viikari, 1974; Lauri Sipari, 1994)
- films: 1976, dir. by Hans W. Geissendörfer, starring Peter Kern, Jean Seberg, Bruno Ganz, Anne Bennent; 1983, dir. by Henri Safran, starring Liv Ullmann, Jeremy Irons - Rosmersholm, 1886 (prod. 1887)
- Rosmersholm (translated by Eva Le Gallienne, 1957; Ann Jellicoe, 1961; Michael Meyer, 1966; D. Rudkin, 1990)
- Rosmersholma (suom. Hilda Asp, 1887) / Rosmersholm (suom. Eino ja Katri Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 5, 1962) - Fruen fra havet, 1888 (prod. 1889)
- The Lady from the Sea ( translated by Frances E. Archer, in Prose Dramas, 1890; R. Farquharson-Sharp and Eleanor Marx-Aveling, 1910; Michael Meyer, 1961; Aubrey Mellor and May-Brit Akerholt, 1984; Stephen Unwin, 2012)
- Merenneito (suom. Yrjö Koskelainen, 1910) / Meren tytär (suom. Eino ja Katri Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 6, 1962) - Hedda Gabler, 1890 (prod. 1891)
- Hedda Gabler (translated by Edmund Gosse and William Archer, 1890; Una Ellis-Fermor, in Hedda Gabler, and Other Plays, 1950; Eva Le Gallienne, 1957; Michael Meyer, 1961; Alan S. Downer, 1961; Christopher Hampton, 1972; Nicholas Rudall, 1992)
- Hedda Gabler (suom. Eino ja Katri Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 6, 1962; Lauri Sipari, 1998)
- films: 1924, dir. by Franz Eckstein, starring Asta Nielsen; television film 1954, starring Tallulah Bankhead; television film 1963, dir. by Lex Segal, starring Ingrid Bergman, Ralph Richardson, Trevor Howard, Michael Redgrave; television film 1971, dir. by Waris Hussein, starring Ian McKellen, Janet Suzman; 1975: Hedda, dir. by Trevor Nunn , starring Gleanda Jackson, Peter Eyre, Timothy West - The Prose Dramas of Henrik Ibsen, 1890 (3 vols., ed. by Edmund Gosse)
- Ibsen's Prose Dramas, 1890-91 (5 vols., translations by William Archer, Charles Archer, and Mrs. F.E. Archer)
- Bygmester Solness, 1892 (prod. 1893)
- The Master Builder (translated by J.W. Arctander, 1893; Edmund Gosse and William Archer, 1893; Eva Le Gallienne, 1957; Una Ellis-Fermor, 1958; Michael Meyer, 1968, James Walter McFarlane, 1981; Nicholas Rudall, 1994)
- Rakentaja Solness (suom. Joel Lehtonen; 1918; Eino ja Katri Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 6, 1962; Juhani Koskinen, 1979) - Lille Eyolf, 1894 (prod. 1893)
- Little Eyolf (translated by William Archer, in Collected Works, 1907; Henry L. Mencken, 1909;Una Ellis-Fermor, 1958;James W. McFarlane, 1977)
- Pikku Eyolf (suom. Teuvo Pakkala, 1895; Eino ja Katri Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 7, 1962)
- TV film 1982, dir. by Michael Darlow, starring Anthony Hopkins, Peggy Ashcroft, Diana Rigg - John Gabriel Borkman, 1896 (prod. 1897)
- Johan Gabriel Borkman (translated by William Archer, in Collected Works, 1907; Eva Le Gallienne and Norman Ginsbury, 1966; David Eldridge and Charlotte Barslund, 1996)
- Johan Gabriel Borkman (suom. Eino ja Katri Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 7, 1962)
- TV film 1958, in ITV Play of the Week, prod. Associated Television (ATV), H. M. Tennant, dir. by Christopher Morahan, starring Laurence Olivier as John Gabriel Borkman - Samlede verker, 1898-1902 (9 vols)
- Når vi døde vågner, 1899 (prod. 1900)
- When We Dead Awaken (in Collected Works, 1907; D. Rudkin, 1990) / When We Dead Wake (translated by Peter Watts, in Ghosts, and Other Plays, 1964)
- Kun me kuolleet heräämme (suom. Eino ja Katri Palola, teoksessa Valitut draamat 7, 1962) - Lyrical Poems, 1902 (translated by R.A. Streatfeild)
- Correspondence, 1905 (ed. by Mary Morrison)
- Episke Brand, 1907 (fragment, ed. by Karl Larsen)
- Collected Works, 1906-1912 (12 vols., translations by William Archer and others)
- Letters of Henrik Ibsen, 1908 (translated by J Nilsen Laurvik; Mary Morison)
- On the Heights, 1910
- Speeches and New Letters, 1911 (ed. by Lee M. Hollander)
- Lyrics and Poems, 1912 (translated by F.E. Garrett)
- Early Plays: Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans, 1921 (translated by Anders Orbeck)
- Samlede verker: Hundreårsutgave, 1928-1957 (21 vols., ed. by Francis Bull, Halvdan Kogt, and Didrik Arup Seip)
- Six Plays by Ibsen, 1957 (translated by Eva Le Gallienne)
- Last Plays, 1959 (introduced and translated by William Archer)
- The Plays of Ibsen, 1960- (translated by Michael Meyer)
- Samlede verker i billigutgave, 1962 (3 vols.)
- The Oxford Ibsen, 1960-1977 (8 vols., ed. by J.W. McFarlane)
- Letters and Speeches, 1965 (ed. by Evert Sprinchorn)
- The Complete Major Prose Plays, 1978 (translated and introduced by Rolf Fjelde)
- Brev 1845-1905, 1979-1981 (ed. by Øyvind Anker)
- The Sayings of Henrik Ibsen, 1996 (edited by Roland Huntford)
- Henrik Ibsens skrifter, 2005-2010 (17 vols.)
- Four Major Plays. Volume 1: A Doll's House; The Wild Duck; Hedda Gabler; The Master Builder, 2006 (rev. ed., in new translations with a foreword by Rolf Fjelde and a new afterword by Joan Templeton)
(Totally quoted from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/)