Penguin Classics: A Doll’s House And Other Plays

The Pillars of Society/A Doll’s House/Ghosts/An Enemy of the People

‘Our home has never been anything other than a play-house. I’ve been your doll-wife here, just as at home I was Daddy’s doll-child’

These four plays established Ibsen as the leading figure in the theatre of his day, sending shockwaves throughout Europe and beyond. A Doll’s House scandalized audiences with its heroine Nora’s assertion that she is ‘first and foremost a human being’, rather than a wife, mother or fragile doll. Ibsen’s even more radical follow-up, Ghosts, exposes family secrets and sexual double-dealing, while The Pillars of Society and An Enemy of the People both explore the hypocrisy and dark tensions at the heart of society. This new translation, the first to be based on the latest critical edition of Ibsen’s works, offers the best version available in English.

A new translation by Deborah Dawkin and Eril Skuggevik
With an introduction by Tore Rem
General Editor Tore Rem