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Stated at copyright page: "First Published 1936 by George G. Harrap & Co., Limited." Large gift book design. Rich brown full-cloth boards, gilt cover and spine titles, design, moderate shelf wear, rub, bow. Features bright stylized titles and two whimsically impish troll creatures; Harrap in gilt at spine heel. Pages near fine, clean. Endpapers with golden silhouette collage of magical fairies and nefarious trolls. Earthy reddish-brown top-stain. Frontispiece plate of "Peer Before the King of the Trolls. Bind fine; hinges intact. Features one dozen smooth color plates; each with captioned tissue guard. In addition, profusely illustrated with headers, tailpieces, partial-page vignettes throughout. Rare near very good first edition of fine book craftsmanship. Among the masterpieces of world literature, this early verse drama by the celebrated Norwegian playwright humorously yet profoundly explores the virtues, vices, and follies common to all humanity as represented in the person of Peer Gynt, a charming but irresponsible young peasant. Based on Norwegian folklore and Ibsen s own imaginative inventions, the play relates the roguish life of the world-wandering Peer, who finds wealth and fame - but never happiness - redeemed by love in the end. As the play opens the young farmer attends a wedding and meets Solveig, the woman who is eventually to be his salvation. However, the rascally Peer then kidnaps the bride and later abandons her in the wilderness. This dismal performance is followed by adventures in many lands. After these soul-chilling exploits, an old and embittered Peer returns to Norway, eventually finding solace in the arms of the faithful Solveig. Imbued with poetic mysticism and romanticism, in Peer we find a rebellious character in search of an ultimate truth that always seems just out of reach. In this sense Peer can be seen as an alter ego of Ibsen himself, whose lifelong search for artistic and moral certainties resulted in the great later plays (Hedda Gabler, The Wild Duck, An Enemy of the People, etc.) Opening scene: "The action, which begins in the early years of the ninteenth century and ends somewhere about 1867, takes place partly in the Gudbrandsdal and on the surrounding mountain-tops, partly on the coast of Morocco, in the Sahara Desert, in the Cairo Lunatic Asylum, at sea, etc." From colophon: "Printed in Edinburgh - the text in Bembo type by R & R Clark, Limited, and the colour plates by Messrs. McLagan & Cumming." 256 pages. Insured post. Size: 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. Seller Inventory # 020684
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