A Doll's House Paperback – June 24, 2013

I was going to be seeing the play “A Doll’s House 2” and wanted to learn and read about the first novel! The origin story. It was so controversial for the time and you were in suspense as to what would happen! Quite exciting a read! I immediately bought a ticket to see “A Doll’s House”play next month. The message was important for the time and still remains important today even though there have been some societal changes. A worthy read and then the follow up volume. Applause!

Obviously many people still want to keep the classics in their library, and most of the books have been transferred to ebooks. The problem with these are that a lot of stuff doesn't get in like a cover or description. With these Wisehouse Classics you get it all, including original drawings (only in select books) that were in the original books giving the book personality. If I want to read something I always go for the description to decide. There are so many books from the greatest authors that get passed over daily. I hope they do even more because I would get them all.

From other reviews, or your own familiarity with Ibsen's famous—and in 1879 scandalous—play, you'll know the basic story and characters of "A Doll's House." It remains a classic, well worth being performed by superior actors. The latter are in abundance in this 1959 production: the incomparable Julie Harris as tormented Nora, Christopher Plummer as her self-preoccupied husband, Hume Cronyn (excellent) as Krogstad the catalyst—not quite a villain, but by his own admission a desperate man who takes desperate, damaging measures—Jason Robards, Jr., as Dr. Rank, Nora's unrequited lover, and Eileen Heckart as Nora's friend Kristine, for whose love Krogstad pines. For 1959—for any year, in fact—this is as fine an ensemble as one could imagine. George Schaefer, from television's golden age, produced and directed.Reluctantly I've deducted one star for primitive production values. Viewers should know that this is a live production, videotaped as a kinescope. As a consequence the lovely set design is visually murky, the audio is indistinct, and various technical glitches mar the illusion: boom mic shadows on the set, intrusive cameras whose timings were off, visual compositions and cuts between cameras that are not as sharp as they could have been had the players been able to retake certain scenes. If you can disregard these things, you'll be rewarded by a splendid performance of a play whose issues continue to resonate strongly to this day.

This play was a high school reading assignment lo' those many years ago, and as with some other similar assignments, I've undertaken an initiative to re-read them, and consider how the book (as well as I) might have aged in the intervening decades. If fussy memory serves me correctly, I appreciated this play the first time around, and hopefully incorporated some of its messages into my thinking.Henrik Ibsen was the leading Norwegian playwright of the 19th century. This play was first produced in 1879. It is still one of the most popular, and performed plays in the world today. Certainly tame by today's "shock" standards, purportedly it did shock many in the audience when it was first produced, due to its scathing portrait of the staid bourgeois views of the role of women in society and marriage. In brief, not just subordinate, but rather a mere appendage to their father's, at first, beliefs and actions, which would later prepare them for the same role serving their husband. Scandinavia was, and often remains, in the forefront in terms of progressive social ideas and legislation. As one of my Swedish friends would quip: "Sweden is a moral superpower."The two principal characters are Torvald Helmer and his wife, Nora. There are several supporting characters, including Dr. Rank, a family doctor who is ill, Mrs. Linde an old school friend of Nora's, and Nils Krogstad, a bank employee, who is also much else. Money, and the lack thereof, is the catalyst for much of the action. Just when Torvald's promotion to bank manager seems to resolve the money issue, the "sins of the past" revisit the Helmer's with a vengence.Ibsen's portrait of Torvald is one of a man who is insufferably pompous, with very fixed ideas on propriety, and his wife's role as a helpless, not to bright, child. This is no marriage of "soul mates," as the expression has it, for marriages of more recent vintage. Torvald views Nora as a "doll," hence the title. He is also utterly selfish, viewing events only from his perspective, and not how they might have impacted his wife. The audience plays the part of the ancient Greek chorus, realizing how much Nora has actually done for Torvald, without his knowledge. I still remember this portrait from my high school read, and the vow not to turn out the same way.A few decades after this play was first produced, Virginia Woolf wrote her famous  A Room of One's Own  which had very similar themes. Ibsen though was the first, and the play's denouement, with Nora proclaiming to Torvald that she "needs a life of her own" and must determine who she really is, continues to resonate, almost a century and a half later. The play remains a 5-star read.

Most of the reviews here appear to be on the book version of Ibsen's play.This television play was done in 1959 and the video quality isn't that good but it's well worth watching because of the outstanding performances. Julie Harris is the best Nora I've ever seen and Christopher Plummer is great as Torvald. The supporting cast led by Hume Cronyn and Jason Robards is excellent.

I agree with a previous reviewer; Julia Harris is the best Nora I have ever seen. She was so in the moment and so the heavy-coated dialogue (though I love Ibsen!) just flowed out of her naturally and honestly. Christopher Plummer was also superb, as was Hume Cronyn (with a brilliant save when he blew a line of dialogue) and Eileen Heckart. The only performance that was off for me was the usually wonderful Jason Robards, who sounded clunky with the Ibsen's dialogue and seemed too American or something. I loved this production. It's magical when great actors illuminate something you have read and know and make it thrilling and new!

Well, modern classic or classic modern. Anyway, I hadn't read this for many, many years. I can't believe how riveted I became as the play progressed.In spite of all that has changed in the world, Ibsen brilliantly evokes the humanity, the search, that is timeless.Beautiful, painful play.

TERRIBLE!!!The covers look like a 5 year old put them together, but the main issue is the play's formatting. It is really unclear who is speaking, as the name is lowercase, with a full stop after it to denote who is speaking. Frequently a new line isn't started even started, but just appears in the previous speaker's dialogue, so it appears as if the previous person is merely saying their name. It is diabolical, completely unfit for study, I had to buy another, different copy for my A-Level study

Ibsen’s famous play, probably the most popular nowadays shouldn’t really need much introduction as chances are that you are already aware of it if you are looking at this item. I should stress however that if you are more than just a general reader for instance a student, then this particular edition will not really be ideal for you, as there is no introduction, notes or analysis, something which you will probably need.Set over a Christmas it emerges that Nora has been keeping a very large secret from her husband Torvald. But as events start to pan out she has to tell her friend Christine, what she has done. Fearing for her husband’s health Nora managed to get a loan, but how she got it wasn’t strictly honest. With the man she got the loan from likely to lose his job he has come to Nora with intent to blackmail. As the play unfurls we see how what at the beginning looks like a normal happy marriage isn’t really so. As layers are drawn back we see that there are some problems here.Ibsen showed here how a marriage can start to fall apart and indeed this does read in some ways like a kitchen sink drama, something that really never started to come about until the 1950s. Ibsen showed his audience true life and with it glaring back at them this did cause quite some controversy throughout Europe. Starting over the issue of money and the need of it for the Helmer family to provide suitable convalescence for the man of the house, this then goes on to the effects caused by Nora managing to raise it in secrecy, and with the final denouement how this could affect the family name and honour. We read all this here and what course of action is taken by Nora at the end, and what really gets her goat about her marriage.Due to the nitty gritty realism here this was so controversial in Germany, that even to be performed the ending had to be altered, thus taking away from the full impact of the whole play. This play has been hailed as a piece of pro- feminism, and yes it can be said that it is, but Ibsen never set out to create anything pro-feminist, instead he wrote and based this on a true event. This is always a pure pleasure to read and if you are into drama then this is a must have if you have not already got a copy, or if like me, ideal to download to your kindle so you have a copy to carry around with you.

Ibsen’s famous play, probably the most popular nowadays shouldn’t really need much introduction as chances are that you are already aware of it if you are looking at this item. I should stress however that if you are more than just a general reader for instance a student, then this particular edition will not really be ideal for you, as there is no introduction, notes or analysis, something which you will probably need.Set over a Christmas it emerges that Nora has been keeping a very large secret from her husband Torvald. But as events start to pan out she has to tell her friend Christine, what she has done. Fearing for her husband’s health Nora managed to get a loan, but how she got it wasn’t strictly honest. With the man she got the loan from likely to lose his job he has come to Nora with intent to blackmail. As the play unfurls we see how what at the beginning looks like a normal happy marriage isn’t really so. As layers are drawn back we see that there are some problems here.Ibsen showed here how a marriage can start to fall apart and indeed this does read in some ways like a kitchen sink drama, something that really never started to come about until the 1950s. Ibsen showed his audience true life and with it glaring back at them this did cause quite some controversy throughout Europe. Starting over the issue of money and the need of it for the Helmer family to provide suitable convalescence for the man of the house this then goes on to the effects caused by Nora managing to raise it in secrecy, and with the final denouement how this could affect the family name and honour. We read all this here and what course of action is taken by Nora at the end, and what really gets her goat about her marriage.Due to the nitty gritty realism here this was so controversial in Germany, that even to be performed the ending had to be altered, thus taking away from the full impact of the whole play. This play has been hailed as a piece of pro- feminism, and yes it can be said that it is, but Ibsen never set out to create anything pro-feminist, instead he wrote and based this on a true event. This is always a pure pleasure to read and if you are into drama then this is a must have if you have not already got a copy, or if like me, ideal to download to your kindle so you have a copy to carry around with you.

Ordered this as I needed it for my A Level English,not really too much to say about the product other then it came earlier than expected (nice surprise) and without any faults. The book was in perfect condition upon arrival,none of the text was missing/faded and like I said delivery was earlier then expected.The only small problem with the book is the durability,after being in my bag for a few months being chucked around the spine has started to rip/crease along with the front cover-however this is to be expected considering it's paperback and is being extensively used. Overall a great purchase!

This book is good for a light read. It’s about a woman going against stereotypes within the 1800’s living in a patriarchal society.