This sixth volume of Ibsen's plays, introduced by the playwright's biographer, contains "Peer Gynt", one of the greatest of 19th-century verse epics and one of Ibsen's most popular and frequently-performed works, and "The Pretenders", an earlier epic that was his first theatrical success.

Michael Meyer's pioneering contemporary versions of Ibsen have been praised by the great British drama critic, Kenneth Tynan, as being Crisp, cobweb free, purged of verbal Victoriana.