LIST OF FOUNDATION PUBLICATIONS
This series of SCANDINAVIAN CLASSICS was published by the
American-Scandinavian Foundation in the belief that greater
familiarity with the chief literary monuments of the North will
help Americans to a better understanding of Scandinavians, and
thus serve to stimulate their sympathetic co-operation to good
ends.
INTRODUCTION
One of the most remarkable facts about Ibsen is the orderly development of his genius. He himself repeatedly maintained that his dramas were not mere isolated accidents. In the foreword to the readers in the popular edition of 1898 he urges the public to read his dramas in the same order in which he had written them, deplores the fact that his earlier works are less known and less understood than his later works, and insists that his writings taken as a whole constitute an organic unity. The three of his plays offered here for the first time in English translation will afford those not familiar with the original Norwegian some light on the early stages of his development.