was born in the Stockman Building in Skien, Norway. He spent part of his childhood on Venstøp Farm after his father went bankrupt. In 1843, he was apprenticed to a chemist in Grimstad. That was when he began writing satire and elegant poems in the style of the time. He wrote his first play in 1849, a five-act tragedy in verse, Catiline, which was published in 1850 under the pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarme. The Warrior's Barrow was written and performed in 1850, as the first of Ibsen's plays to reach the stage. However, it was not published unti ....