Pillars of Society by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)

By Henrik Ibsen

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Pillars of Society by Henrik Ibsen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen’.

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.

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* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781788775830

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was a Norwegian playwright who thrived during the late nineteenth century. He began his professional career at age 15 as a pharmacist’s apprentice. He would spend his free time writing plays, publishing his first work Catilina in 1850, followed by The Burial Mound that same year. He eventually earned a position as a theatre director and began producing his own material. Ibsen’s prolific catalogue is noted for depicting modern and real topics. His major titles include Brand, Peer Gynt and Hedda Gabler.

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The Complete Works of

HENRIK IBSEN

VOLUME 13 OF 29

Pillars of Society

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2013

Version 1

COPYRIGHT

‘Pillars of Society’

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 583 0

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

Contact: [e-mail]

www.delphiclassics.com

Henrik Ibsen: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 13 of the Delphi Classics edition of Henrik Ibsen in 29 Parts. It features the unabridged text of Pillars of Society 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

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Pillars of Society

Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp

Being the first of Ibsen’s contemporary prose dramas, Pillars of Society underwent a long creative process. In a letter dated December 14, 1869, Ibsen revealed to Frederik Hegel that he was planning a new, serious, contemporary drama in three acts. However, five years passed before Ibsen worked on the idea in earnest. He and his family had then moved from Dresden to Munich. In November 1875, the first act was finished in a fair copy, but had to be re-worked several times. For the next eighteen months the play was constantly re-worked. In a letter to Frederik Hegel dated June 24, 1877, Ibsen was finally able to announce that the play was finished and that he was making a fair copy. The final manuscript was then sent to Hegel in five parts between July 29th and August 20th.

Pillars of Society was first published on 11 October of that year in Copenhagen, with the first staging following on 14 November at the Odense Teater and on 18 November at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen. The first performance in Norway was at Den Nationale Scene in Bergen on 30 November. By this date, the play had been translated into German, in which it was immediately well received. In December 1880 it became the first of any of Ibsen’s plays to be performed in English in London, under the title Quicksands.

The narrative introduces Karsten Bernick, a dominant businessman in a small coastal town in Norway, with interests in shipping and shipbuilding in a long-established family firm. In the beginning of the play he is planning his most ambitious project yet, backing a railway that will connect the town to the main line and open a fertile valley, which he has been secretly buying up. However, when his wife’s younger brother, who had mysteriously run away fifteen years ago, suddenly returns to the town, Bernick’s life is thrown into turmoil.

Odense Teater in Denmark, where ‘Pillars of Society’ was first performed

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ACT I.

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

Ibsen, close to the time of the play’s first publication

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Karsten Bernick, a shipbuilder.

Mrs. Bernick, his wife.

Olaf, their son, thirteen years old.

Martha Bernick, Karsten Bernick’s sister.

Johan Tonnesen, Mrs. Bernick’s younger brother.

Lona Hessel, Mrs. Bernick’s elder half-sister.

Hilmar Tonnesen, Mrs. Bernick’s cousin.

Dina Dorf, a young girl living with the Bernicks.

Rorlund, a schoolmaster.

Rummel, a merchant.

Vigeland and Sandstad, tradesman

Krap, Bernick’s confidential clerk.

Aune, foreman of Bernick’s shipbuilding yard.

Mrs. Rummel.

Hilda Rummel, her daughter.

Mrs. Holt.

Netta Holt, her daughter.

Mrs. Lynge.

Townsfolk and visitors, foreign sailors, steamboat passengers, etc., etc.

(The action takes place at the Bernicks’ house in one of the smaller coast towns in Norway)

ACT I.

(SCENE. — A spacious garden-room in the BERNICKS’ house. In the foreground on the left is a door leading to BERNICK’S business room; farther back in the same wall, a similar door. In the middle of the opposite wall is a large entrance-door, which leads to the street. The wall in the background is almost wholly composed of plate-glass; a door in it opens upon a broad flight of steps which lead down to the garden; a sun-awning is stretched over the steps. Below the steps a part of the garden is visible, bordered by a fence with a small gate in it. On the other side of the fence runs a street, the opposite side of which is occupied by small wooden houses painted in bright colours. It is summer, and the sun is shining warmly. People are seen, every now and then, passing along the street and stopping to talk to one another; others going in and out of a shop at the corner, etc.

In the room a gathering of ladies is seated round a table. MRS. BERNICK is presiding; on her left side are MRS. HOLT and her daughter NETTA, and next to them MRS. RUMMEL and HILDA RUMMEL. On MRS. BERNICK’S right are MRS. LYNGE, MARTHA BERNICK and DINA DORF. All the ladies are busy working. On the table lie great piles of linen garments and other articles of clothing, some half finished, and some merely cut out. Farther back, at a small table on which two pots of flowers and a glass of sugared water are standing, RORLUND is sitting, reading aloud from a book with gilt edges, but only loud enough for the spectators to catch a word now and then. Out in the garden OLAF BERNICK is running about and shooting at a target with a toy crossbow.

After a moment AUNE comes in quietly through the door on the right. There is a slight interruption in the reading. MRS. BERNICK nods to him and points to the door on the left. AUNE goes quietly across, knocks softly at the door of BERNICK’S room, and after a moment’s pause, knocks again. KRAP comes out of the room, with his hat in his hand and some papers under his arm.)

Krap: Oh, it was you knocking?

Aune: Mr. Bernick sent for me.

Krap: He did — but he cannot see you. He has deputed me to tell you —

Aune: Deputed you? All the same, I would much rather —

Krap: — deputed me to tell you what he wanted to say to you. You must give up these Saturday lectures of yours to the men.

Aune: Indeed? I supposed I might use my own time —

Krap: You must not use your own time in making the men useless in working hours. Last Saturday you were talking to them of the harm that would be done to the workmen by our new machines and the new working methods at the yard. What makes you do that?

Aune: I do it for the good of the community.

Krap: That’s curious, because Mr. Bernick says it is disorganising the community.

Aune: My community is not Mr. Bernick’s, Mr. Krap! As President of the Industrial Association, I must —

Krap: You are, first and foremost, President of Mr. Bernick’s shipbuilding yard; and, before everything else, you have to do your duty to the community known as the firm of Bernick & Co.; that is what every one of us lives for. Well, now you know what Mr. Bernick had to say to you.

Aune: Mr. Bernick would not have put it that way, Mr. Krap! But I know well enough whom I have to thank for this. It is that damned American boat. Those fellows expect to get work done here the way they are accustomed to it over there, and that —

Krap: Yes, yes, but I can’t go into all these details. You know now what Mr. Bernick means, and that is sufficient. Be so good as to go back to the yard; probably you are needed there. I shall be down myself in a little while. — Excuse me, ladies! (Bows to the ladies and goes out through the garden and down the street. AUNE goes quietly out to the right. RORLUND, who has continued his reading during the foregoing conversation, which has been carried on in low tones, has now come to the end of the book, and shuts it with a bang.)

Rorlund: There, my dear ladies, that is the end of it.

Mrs. Rummel: What an instructive tale!

Mrs. Holt: And such a