or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
Express Checkout with PayPhrase
What's this? | Create PayPhrase
More Buying Choices
34 used & new from $0.30

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Peer Gynt (Dover Thrift Editions)
 
 
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don’t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.
 
  

Peer Gynt (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

~ (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

Price: $2.00 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
  Special Offers Available
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Only 5 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want it delivered Friday, December 4? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
Ordering for Christmas? To ensure delivery by December 24, choose Standard Shipping at checkout. Read more about holiday shipping.

14 new from $0.94 19 used from $0.30 1 collectible from $113.00

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
  Hardcover, April 29, 2008 $34.95 $33.34 $39.45
  Paperback, October 31, 1988 $1.50 $1.50 $0.75
  Paperback, May 7, 2003 $2.00 $0.94 $0.30
  Mass Market Paperback, December 31, 1963 -- -- $0.99
  Audio, Cassette, Unabridged $19.95 $19.95 --
  Unknown Binding, December 31, 1944 -- -- $2.00

Frequently Bought Together

Peer Gynt (Dover Thrift Editions) + Miss Julie and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics) + Four Major Plays, Volume I (Signet Classics)
Price For All Three: $17.49

Show availability and shipping details

  • This item: Peer Gynt (Dover Thrift Editions) by Christopher Fry

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Miss Julie and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics) by August Strindberg

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Four Major Plays, Volume I (Signet Classics) by Henrik Ibsen

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details


Special Offers and Product Promotions

  • This item is eligible for our 4-for-3 promotion. Eligible products include select Books, Single Copy Magazines, and Home & Garden items. Buy any 4 eligible items and get the lowest-priced item free. Here's how (restrictions apply)
  • Over a hundred thousand items are eligible for our 4-for-3 promotion. How do I find more eligible items?


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

This is Our Youth

This is Our Youth

by Kenneth Lonergan
4.3 out of 5 stars (6)  $11.21
Miss Julie and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics)

Miss Julie and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics)

by August Strindberg
5.0 out of 5 stars (2)  $8.54
Fires in the Mirror Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities..

Fires in the Mirror Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities..

by Anna Deavere Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars (5)  $7.50
Top Girls (Student Editions)

Top Girls (Student Editions)

by Caryl Churchill
4.1 out of 5 stars (7)  $10.17
Four Plays: The Bald Soprano; The Lesson; Jack, or the Submission; The Chairs

Four Plays: The Bald Soprano; The Lesson; Jack, or the Submission; The Chairs

by Eugene Ionesco
4.7 out of 5 stars (20)  $10.40
Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Review

Five-act verse play by Henrik Ibsen, published in Norwegian in 1867 and produced in 1876. The title character, based on a legendary Norwegian folk hero, is a rogue who is saved by the love of a woman. Peer Gynt is a charming but arrogant peasant youth who leaves his widowed mother in order to seek his fortune. Confident of success, he has one disastrous adventure after another. In one, he attends the wedding of the wealthy young woman he himself might have married. There he meets Solveig, who falls in love with him. He impulsively abducts the bride from her wedding celebration and subsequently abandons her. Peer Gynt embarks on a series of fantastic voyages around the world, finding wealth and fame but never happiness. Finally, as an old, disillusioned man, he returns to Norway, where Solveig, ever faithful, welcomes him lovingly, and he is redeemed. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.


Review


"Distinguished by the union of wit and sentiment which marks the Norwegian original....Invites the reader to "feel out the sinew" of the master's varied poetic rhythms; and it is a pleasure to do so in this new version, which is crafted in British rather than American English....Along with the informative and inviting introduction, endnotes give background essential to a fuller appreciation of this 1867 masterpiece....Recommended for all libraries."--Choice
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

  • Reading level: Young Adult
  • Paperback: 144 pages
  • Publisher: Dover Publications (May 7, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0486426866
  • ISBN-13: 978-0486426860
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5 x 0.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #454,328 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category: (What's this?)

    #17 in  Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( I ) > Ibsen, Henrik

More About the Authors

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Inside This Book (learn more)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

 

Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars the emptiness of prodigality., July 2, 2001
Often funny. Often bizarre. Always deep. Peer Gynt first appears to me as this self-centered youth who cares only for himself and the satisfaction of his impulses and whims at any cost. He is the quick non-thinker, who leaves a life of relative conventionality to roam as a dissolute wanderer. He is indeed all of these things, but all the while his "self" is not "centered". At the end of his adventures as a libertine, the grey-bearded Peer Gynt is at a cross-roads, and he asks the character of the Button Moulder this question: "What, after all, is this being one's self?" The Button Moulder replies that being one's self means slaying one's Self, and furthermore "observing the Master's intentions in all things." Peer Gynt contemplates this... restraint and delayed gratification have never been manageable themes with him. In my opinion, this whole idea of the search for the "self" is what Peer Gynt is all about. At the very final crossroads he is redeemed by the undeserved forgiveness and love of Solvieg, the woman he has once abandoned... this scene being a beautiful picture of the grace and love of God that is available to the Peer Gynt in every reader.

Ibsen originally wrote Peer Gynt as a poem, and therefore we lose the Norwegian rhyme and metre in any English translation. To compensate if at all possible, I suggest reading the play while listening to the incidental music of Edvard Grieg, specifically composed to accompany the live performance of Peer Gynt. (Note: My review is based on the translation by Peter Watts).

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Charm of a Trickster..., February 1, 2008
Peer Gynt is a piece of literature that, like Goethe's Faust Part II plays best on the stage of the imagination. It is too lengthy and costly to be performed on stage. Sometimes the first three acts are performed together, sometimes the last two acts are brought together to become a whole for a theatre production.

In terms of reading, this is a great fable piece. Peer is the Trickster with the mirror to his conscience. As a youth, he is Troll-like in his lusts, in his carousing. In his middle-age, he is Troll-like in his financial enterprises. At the end of his life, he is a folorn man, having given up possible true love to run around in search of his self. He is a fraud but we feel sympathy for him. He pursues life in search of distractions and power but ends up empty at the end, soon to be the vicim of the Button Moulder, soon to be nothing more than a button.

This work has many levels and open to numerous interpretations. Ideally, this is the book you read for a book club. There is nothing conventional about it. The conversations will be endless and the philosophy inspired, well, might be inspiring.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Difficult. Surreal., January 26, 2008
By bongo (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews
  
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
Peer Gynt is a sort of folk tale character who we see go from being a young man to an old man and who gets in several different adventures. The play doesn't have much of a plot exactly. It starts of in a Norwegian village where Peer is a buffoonish character. He leaves the village, meets up with Trolls, gets in a shipwreck, wanders around the desert, and runs into the button moulder. All of this just happens, disconnectedly. He spends time in America also, but we aren't shown that.

There is a lot of talk about being your self, being authentic, etc. If the play has a theme, I am guessing that's it.

It's completely different from Ibsen's realistic works like An Enemy of the People or The Wild Duck. I'm more a fan of those works. Peer Gynt didn't really speak to me.

On a side note, in the movie Educating Rita, with Michael Caine, Rita takes a test where one of the questions was 'What are some of the difficulties in staging Peer Gynt?' A: It's long. It's not in prose. It has trolls and other fantastical creatures. It has a huge cast many of whom are only on stage very briefly. The main character goes from being a youth to a very old man. The settings vary from a Norwegian village to Egypt and the Sphinx. This is why it's rarely done on stage.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Original play
This is the first version of the play. Beautiful writing, incredible fluidity of speech. A must have between Peter Pan and Samuel Beckett.
Published on January 3, 2007 by Timothee Josset

3.0 out of 5 stars Prodigal son
Few works of literature have inspired classical music that has broke into the popular press. One of these is Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Read more
Published on May 23, 2006 by Newton Ooi

3.0 out of 5 stars A Superb Writer
He writes like a comedian, waving his fist at your face, all while enthronging you to read on!


Published on December 3, 2004 by Oslo Jargo

5.0 out of 5 stars The "Bad" Ibsen
A genuinely wonderful comedy, not a bit dated, & a wiser way into Ibsen than any of the later & generally rated greater problem plays. Read more
Published on June 5, 2000 by Carra R Lane

3.0 out of 5 stars Did you like A Midsummer Night's Dream?
If yes, then you might enjoy this drama. It had the same flavor. It was allright, but definitely not among my favorites. Read more
Published on October 21, 1999 by Katie (k8enmatt@aol.com)

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb!
This ranks up there with Shakespeare. That is all you need to know
Published on September 12, 1999

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   



So You'd Like to...


Create a guide

Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)


Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject

 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.