Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 8).djvu/13

 AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.

INTRODUCTION.

From Pillars of Society to John Gabriel Borkman, all Ibsen's plays, with one exception, succeeded each other at intervals of two years. The single exception was An Enemy of the People. The storm of obloquy which greeted Ghosts stirred him to unwonted rapidity of production. Ghosts had appeared in December 1881; already, in the spring of 1882, Ibsen, then living in Rome, was at work upon its successor; and he finished it at Gossensass, in the Tyrol, in the early autumn. It appeared in Copenhagen at the end of November.

John Paulsen[1] relates an anecdote of the poet's extreme secretiveness during the process of composition, which may find a place here: "One summer he was travelling by rail with his wife and son. He was engaged upon a new play at the time; but neither Fru Ibsen nor Sigurd had any idea as to what it was about. Of course they were both very curious. It happened that, at a station, Ibsen left the carriage for a few moments. As he did so he dropped a scrap of paper. His wife picked it up, and read on it only the words,

1 Samliv med Ibsen, p. 173.