At the time Henrik Ibsen wrote and published Hedda Gabler (1890) he was sixty-two and a well-established but highly controversial dramatist, but the road to that success had been paved with deprivation and hardship. Although he was born in a well-to-do family in Skien, Norway, on March 20, 1828, financial reversals led to poverty, making Henrik's youth a dismal one. At sixteen, he began a lonely and unhappy six-year apprenticeship to an apothecary (a pharmacist). He found his principal solace in the theater and writing, which he hoped would provide a means of escaping from his misery.

His first serious attempt at drama, Cataline (1850), earned him the support of friends who helped him escape from drudgery. He moved to Christiania (Oslo), where he undertook an apprenticeship as dramatist with the Bergen National Theatre. He also spent time in Copenhagen, studying at the Royal Theatre.

Ibsen's first plays borrowed freely...