Brief description
Ibsen began to plan The Pretenders in the summer of 1858. It is assumed that he was inspired by reading the third volume of P. A. Munch's «The History of the Norwegian People» (1857), which dealt with the civil wars from Sverre's appearance in 1177 until the fall of Duke Skule in 1240. However, Ibsen put aside this subject in order to work on another play, Love's Comedy, which he did not finish until the autumn of 1862.
In this period, between 1857 and 1862, Ibsen had his hands full with his duties as artistic director of the Kristiania Norske Theater. On 1 June 1862 he was released from his engagement at the theatre, and when Love's Comedy was finished he resumed his work on The Pretenders in the winter of 1862/63. However it was still a relatively long time before he started writing.
One of the factors that started him off was his meeting with Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson during the national singers festival in Bergen from the 4 to the 18 of June 1863. Ibsen seems to have been greatly inspired by this meeting, and to have started writing The Pretenders.
The play was written during the first few months after his return from Bergen, and the fair copy was finished at the beginning of September 1863. On 15 September Ibsen signed a contract for the publication of the play by Johan Dahl's publishing house in Christiania.
The Pretenders was published in Christiania at the end of October 1863 (but with 1864 on the title-page). The publisher was Johan Dahl, and the edition comprised 1 250 copies. Sales were relatively poor. The second, somewhat revised edition, was published in November 1870 by Gyldendalske Boghandel (F. Hegel) in Copenhagen. The changes were almost exclusively orthographical.
«There are few changes», Ibsen writes in a letter to his new publisher Frederik Hegel, dated Dresden, 11 April 1870, «as I must say that I found the dialogue so firmly based, the lines so consistently built on each other, that it was not in my power to condense or improve it.» [read the letter in HISe]
As this edition represents the final version, it is the one on which new editions of the play are based.
Ibsen himself directed the first performance of The Pretenders. It took place at Christiania Theater on 17 Januar 1864. Ibsen had then been literary consultant to this theatre for a year.
The parts of Håkon, Skule and Bishop Nikolas were played by Sigvart Gundersen, Nicolaj Wolf and J. P. L. Nielsen respectively. The critics were not wholly in favour of the production, but it was a success with audiences all the same.
(From ibsen.net)
Read The Pretenders (in Norwegian)
In the online version of the official Ibsen edition (HISe), you can read The Pretenders in various formats. This content is currently only available in Norwegian. Follow the links below to read the play:
Introduction to the work (in Norwegian)
The online version of the official Ibsen edition (HISe) offers extensive information about The Pretenders in Norwegian. Follow the links below to read about various aspects connected to the play.
Reviews
Here you can find reviews in full text and an overview of registered reviews in various languages.
- Reviews from Ibsen's life time in full text
- Reviews registered in the Ibsen bibliography (nb.no)
- Reviews registered in "Norsk litteraturkritikk" (UiO)
Translations
- The Multilingual Ibsen
- Translations in various languages
- Overview of translations from Ibsen's lifetime (HISe)