Excerpt from The Works of Henrik Ibsen: Little Eyolf; John Gabriel Borkman; When We Dead Awaken; An Enemy of the People; The Wild Duck Dr. Elias tells us that a well-known lady-artist, who in middle life suggested to Ibsen the figure of Lona Hessel, was in later years the model for the rat-wife. There is no inconsistency between these two accounts of the matter. The idea was doubtless suggested by his recol lection of the rat-catcher of Skien, while traits of manner and physiognomy might be borrowed from the lady in question. The Literary Remains contain a draft of Little Eyolf, with several gaps in it, and yet fairly complete. It shows once more how after having invented a play, the poet set about re-inventing it, and how the re-invention was apt to determine its poetic value. In this case he had extraordinary difficulty with the characters' names, which he changed about incessantly. His first list of characters ran thus. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.