Lot 202: IBSEN [Henrik]

IBSEN [Henrik]

Hedda Gabler: a drama in four acts; translated from the Norwegian by Edmund Gosse...1st English edition, port. frontis. on India paper, 2 photographic plates, publisher's printed, illustrated wrapper, fore-edges uncut and unopened, fore-edges foxed, endpapers slightly foxed, very slight waer at thead and tail of spine, small 4to., London: Heinemann, 1891
Note: First edition of Gosse's translation , issued in a limited edition of 100 copies on large paper, of which this is no 2. It was preceded by two editions in Norwegian, one at Copenhagen and one in London which was limited to 12 copies. Gosse's version was used for the first production in English at the Vaudeville Theatre in London on 20 April.
Printing and the Mind of Man (375) chose Hedda Gabler as possibly Ibsen's most frequently performed play in the modern theatre. "...it was not until the influence of Ibsen, however reviled by its opponents and misunderstood by its champions, had percolated into the theatre that the English drama made any noticeable effort to burst its chains of outworn tradtion and a constricted view of the province of dramatic art." Cambridge History of English Literature Vol. XIII, p. 273

Estimate £ 700-900