Hedda Gabler and Other Plays

Four of Ibsen's most important plays in superb modern translations, part of the new Penguin Ibsen series. In these four unforgettably intense plays, Henrik Ibsen explores the complex nature of truth, the tension between freedom and responsibility, and the terrible pull that the past exerts over the present. In The Wild Duck, an idealist destroys a family by exposing the lie behind his friend's marriage. In Rosmersholm, a respectable man is driven to extremes by guilt over his wife's death, while in The Lady from the Sea a woman is caught between her family and the enticement of the wild sea. And in Hedda Gabler, one of Ibsen's most famous and vivid anti-heroines struggles to break free from the conventional life she has created for herself, with tragic results. The new Penguin series of Ibsen's major plays offer the best available editions in English, under the general editorship of Tore Rem. The plays have been freshly translated by the best modern translators and are based on the recently published, definitive Norwegian edition of Ibsen's works. They all include new introductions and editorial apparatus by leading scholars.