Hedda is an intelligent and ambitious woman, trapped in the stifling environment of a bourgeois 19th-century marriage. When writer Eilert Loevborg, an old flame returns to Hedda's life with a masterpiece that might threaten her husband's career, Hedda decides to take drastic and fatal action. Universally condemned in 1890 when it was written, Hedda Gabler has since become one of Ibsen's most frequently performed plays. Its title role is elusive and complex: Hedda is an intelligent and ambitious woman, who has no means of finding personal fulfilment in the stifling world of late nineteenth-century bourgeois society. Too frightened of scandal to become involved with a brilliant, wayward writer, she opts for a conventional but loveless marriage in the hope of finding surrogate satisfaction through her husband's career. Blending comedy and tragedy disconcertingly together, Ibsen probes the thwarted aspirations and hidden anxieties of his characters against a background of contemporary social conditions and attitudes.

Consumption was the deadliest, most common disease that mankind has faced up till now. Three billion people in Europe and North America died between the fourteenth and the end of the eighteenth century. It was a death sentence with no known cause which led to the development of unusual empirical therapies. Lucky Consumptive patients reached a Sanatorium. Sanatoria were developed to house sick patients in an environment where they stood the best chance of recovery from their illness. There was no organised healthcare system and funding for a Sanatorium depended upon provision provided by wealthy individuals, or societies. Charles Dunnell Rudd was a Cape Merchant who had made a fortune in South Africa successfully prospecting for Gold and Diamonds. His mother had died from Consumption and he wished to invest some of his money in building a Sanatorium. It had been shown that Consumptive patients survived longer if they took vigorous exercise, slept out of doors, and were nursed on higher land near to forests. Rudd anonymously purchased raised land at Northwood for this purpose. Helena (later Princess Christian) was Queen Victoria's third daughter, and had a marked social awareness, arranging charitable meals for the less fortunate. She was very hard working and became the Principal Patron for Mount Vernon Hospital, donating money and attending annual fundraising Festival Dinners. Contemporary photographs from this period show female patients walking around the grounds and occupying designated rest shelters. The male patients had a more vigorous lifestyle, working in the gardens and sleeping in their beds out of doors. Those surviving often acquired new skills which might enhance their future employment prospects. These measures greatly improved the prognosis for consumptive patients. After Koch discovered the Tubercle Bacillus effective curative anti-tuberculous therapy evolved.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.