Ibsenhuset Museum

The Ibsen Museum in Grimstad is Norway's oldest museum of its kind and the best place to understand the playwright's formative years. The young Henrik Ibsen came here aged 15 to work as a pharmacist's apprentice and spent six difficult years in Grimstad before escaping to Christiania (now Oslo) in 1850. The original pharmacy — where he tended the dispensary and, in his spare moments, wrote his first play — has been preserved and opened to the public.

The museum includes Ibsen's actual room, the pharmacy with its original fittings, personal manuscripts and first editions, and exhibits on the transformation of a provincial Norwegian boy into Europe's most important playwright. Tours in English run at 12:00 and 15:00 in season. The building is at Henrik Ibsens gate 14, just up from the harbour.

things to do museum
A story
The teenage Ibsen arrived in Grimstad in 1844, aged 15, to work as a pharmacist's apprentice. He was desperately unhappy here, felt trapped in a provincial town, and wrote his first play — Catilina — in secret while tending the dispensary. When he finally left for Christiania in 1850, he left most of his possessions behind and never returned. The museum preserves exactly the room where he worked and wrote, unchanged in its essentials.