Ibsen’s beginnings are more obscure than one might expect for someone of his stature. One reason for this obscurity is that his early ears were spent in small towns. He was born in 1828 in Skien, a town of about 2500 residents on the southeastern coast of Norway, and he lived there until he was 15 years old. In late December of 1843 he moved to Grimstad, a smaller town about 7 miles farther down the coast, where he lived for six years, until April 1850, when, at the age of 22, he moved to the Norwegian capital, Christiania (Oslo).