Norway—the first he had paid since the Hegira of ten years earlier. A good deal of time was devoted to the revision of some of his earlier works, which were republished in Copenhagen; while the increasing vogue of his plays on the stage involved a considerable amount of business correspondence. The Vikings and The Pretenders were acted in these years, not only throughout Scandinavia, but at many of the leading theatres of Germany; and in 1876, after much discussion and negotiation, Peer Gynt was for the first time placed on the stage, in Christiania.
The first mention of Pillars of Society occurs in a letter from Ibsen to his publisher, Hegel, of October 23, 1875, in which he mentions that the first act, "always to me the most difficult part of a play," is ready, and states that it will be "a drama in five acts." Unless this be a mere slip of the pen, it is curious as showing that, even when the first act was finished, Ibsen did not foresee in detail the remainder of the action. In the course of further development an act dropped out of his scheme. On November 25, 1875, he reports to Hegel: "The first act of my new drama is ready—the fair copy written; I am now working at Act Second"; but it was not until the summer of 1877 that the completed manuscript was sent to Copenhagen. The book was published in the early autumn.
The theatrical success of Pillars of Society was immediate and striking. First performed in Copenhagen, November 18, 1877, it soon found its way to all the leading stages of Scandinavia. In Berlin, in the early spring of 1878, it was produced at five different theatres within a single fortnight; and it has ever since maintained its hold on the German
