Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)
By Henrik Ibsen
()
About this ebook
Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Ibsen includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.
eBook features:* The complete unabridged text of ‘Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Ibsen’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles
Henrik Ibsen
Born in 1828, Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and poet, often associated with the early Modernist movement in theatre. Determined to become a playwright from a young age, Ibsen began writing while working as an apprentice pharmacist to help support his family. Though his early plays were largely unsuccessful, Ibsen was able to take employment at a theatre where he worked as a writer, director, and producer. Ibsen’s first success came with Brand and Peter Gynt, and with later plays like A Doll’s House, Ghosts, and The Master Builder he became one of the most performed playwrights in the world, second only to William Shakespeare. Ibsen died in his home in Norway in 1906 at the age of 78.
Read more from Henrik Ibsen
A Doll’s House: A Play in Three Acts Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Enemy of the People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Enemy of the People Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGhosts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master Builder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nora : A Doll's House (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGhosts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Enemy of the People (1882) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rosmersholm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Enemy of the People: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When We Dead Awaken Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wild Duck Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The League of Youth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Doll's House (1879) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Doll's House (Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp with an Introduction by William Archer) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHedda Gabbler Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Enemy of the People (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeer Gynt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove's Comedy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hedda Gabler (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPillars of Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLittle Eyolf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)
Titles in the series (23)
Catiline by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Burial Mound by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove’s Comedy by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrand by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Feast at Solhaug by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOlaf Liljekrans by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLady Inger of Oestraat by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Vikings at Helgeland by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Pretenders by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmperor and Galilean by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe League of Youth by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPillars of Society by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGhosts by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lady from the Sea by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRosmersholm by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLittle Eyolf by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry of Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrand by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFour Great Plays of Henrik Ibsen: A Doll's House, The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, The M Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Henrik Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhen We Dead Awaken Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hedda Gabler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Changeling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChekhov's Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Way of the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBad Roads (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare's Sonnets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cherry Orchard Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Macbeth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sea-Gull Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHedda Gabbler Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Seagull: A Play in Four Acts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Eugene O'Neill's "The Emperor Jones" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSnail House (NHB Modern Plays): The Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Maids Tragedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHamlet by William Shakespeare (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe White Devil Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hell House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Scarlet Letter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Also Rises: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quiet American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lathe Of Heaven Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) - Henrik Ibsen
The Complete Works of
HENRIK IBSEN
VOLUME 15 OF 29
Ghosts
Parts Edition
By Delphi Classics, 2013
Version 1
COPYRIGHT
‘Ghosts’
Henrik Ibsen: Parts Edition (in 29 parts)
First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.
© Delphi Classics, 2017.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.
ISBN: 978 1 78877 585 4
Delphi Classics
is an imprint of
Delphi Publishing Ltd
Hastings, East Sussex
United Kingdom
Contact: sales@delphiclassics.com
www.delphiclassics.com
Henrik Ibsen: Parts Edition
This eBook is Part 15 of the Delphi Classics edition of Henrik Ibsen in 29 Parts. It features the unabridged text of Ghosts from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of Henrik Ibsen, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.
Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of Henrik Ibsen or the Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen in a single eBook.
Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.
HENRIK IBSEN
IN 29 VOLUMES
Parts Edition Contents
The Plays
1, Catiline
2, The Burial Mound
3, Lady Inger of Oestraat
4, The Feast at Solhaug
5, Olaf Liljekrans
6, The Vikings at Helgeland
7, Love’s Comedy
8, The Pretenders
9, Brand
10, Peer Gynt
11, The League of Youth
12, Emperor and Galilean
13, Pillars of Society
14, A Doll’s House
15, Ghosts
16, An Enemy of the People
17, The Wild Duck
18, Rosmersholm
19, The Lady from the Sea
20, Hedda Gabler
21, The Master Builder
22, Little Eyolf
23, John Gabriel Borkman
24, When We Dead Awaken
The Poems
25, The Poetry
The Norwegian Texts (De norske tekster)
26, The Original Texts
The Non-Fiction
27, Speeches and New Letters
The Criticism
28, The Criticism
The Biography
29, The Life of Henrik Ibsen by Edmund Gosse
www.delphiclassics.com
Ghosts
Translated by William Archer
First staged in 1882, Ghosts was written in 1881 and once more presents a scathing commentary on 19th-century morality. Originally written in Danish, with the title Gengangere
that literally translates as again walkers
, the title can also refer to people that frequently appear in the same places. As early as November 1880, whilst still living in Rome, Ibsen was meditating on a new play to follow the sensation caused by A Doll’s House. When visiting Sorrento in the summer of 1881, the playwright was hard at work upon this new drama, which was finished by the end of November and published in Copenhagen on 13 December. Its world stage première was on 20 May 1882 in Chicago.
The play involves Helen Alving, who is about to dedicate an orphanage she has built in the memory of her dead husband, Captain Alving. She reveals to Pastor Manders, her spiritual advisor, that she has ‘hidden the evils of her marriage’ and has built the orphanage to deplete her husband’s wealth so that their son, Oswald, might not inherit anything from him. Pastor Manders had previously advised her to return to her husband despite his philandering and she had followed his advice in the belief that her love for her husband would eventually reform him. However, her husband’s wicked ways continued until his death and Mrs. Alving was unable to leave him for fear of being shunned by the community. During the action of the play she discovers that her son Oswald, whom she had sent away so that he would not be corrupted by his father, is suffering from inherited syphilis and has fallen in love with Regina Engstrand, Mrs. Alving’s maid. Tragedy further strikes when it is also revealed that Regina is the illegitimate daughter of Captain Alving and therefore Oswald’s own half-sister.
In many ways Ghosts forms a sequel of sorts to A Doll’s House. Instead of the general query, Did Nora return to her children?
, Ibsen puts the stress on the problem of what would have happened to Nora’s children had she and Helmer persisted in living the life of lies they were accustomed to. The moral corruption of Oswald Alving, his degenerate relationship with the serving maid, who proves to be in the end his half-sister, are the direct product of the moral unsavoriness of Captain Alving, whose past life has been covered through the moral smugness of his wife, acting under the advice of the conventional minister, Pastor Manders. If Dr. Rank, in A Doll’s House, was suffering from the sins of his fathers, Oswald Alving is the product of the moral degeneracy of his father and the moral weakness of his mother. Thus, Ibsen’s Ghosts becomes an answer to the question whether Nora had a right to leave her children when she did.
Much like its predecessor, Ghosts was deliberately sensational, offending many critics with what was regarded at the time as shocking indecency, due to the handling of themes such as infidelity, venereal disease and, worst of all, incest. One English critic later described the play as a dirty deed done in public
, whilst another newspaper critic labelled the work as, Revoltingly suggestive and blasphemous ... Characters either contradictory in themselves, uninteresting or abhorrent
. Meanwhile, Ghosts also scandalised the Norwegian society of the day and Ibsen was strongly criticised. In 1898 when the playwright was presented to King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway, at a dinner in Ibsen’s honour, the King told Ibsen that Ghosts was not a good play. After a pause, Ibsen exploded, "Your Majesty, I had to write Ghosts!"
The first edition
‘Ghosts’ was not performed in the theatre until May 1882, when a Danish touring company produced it in the Aurora Turner Hall in Chicago. The hall was later converted into a bowling alley.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.
CHARACTERS.
ACT FIRST.
ACT SECOND.
ACT THIRD.
Hedvig Winterhjelm as Mrs. Alving and August Lindberg as Osvald in the 1883 Swedish performance.
INTRODUCTION.
The winter of 1879-80 Ibsen spent in Munich, and the greater part of the summer of 1880 at Berchtesgaden. November 1880 saw him back in Rome, and he passed the summer of 1881 at Sorrento. There, fourteen years earlier, he had written the last acts of Peer Gynt; there he now wrote, or at any rate completed, Gengangere. It was published in December 1881, after he had returned to Rome. On December 22 he wrote to Ludwig Passarge, one of his German translators, My new play has now appeared, and has occasioned a terrible uproar in the Scandinavian press; every day I receive letters and newspaper articles decrying or praising it.... I consider it utterly impossible that any German theatre will accept the play at present. I hardly believe that they will dare to play it in the Scandinavian countries for some time to come.
How rightly he judged we shall see anon.
In the newspapers there was far more obloquy than praise. Two men, however, stood by him from the first: Björnson, from whom he had been practically estranged