Brand was Ibsen"s first masterpiece, a poetic drama composed in 1865 and published to tremendous critical and popular acclaim. The unsparing vision of a priest driven by faith to risk and witness the deaths of his wife and child gives Brand its icy ferocity. When he was writing it in Italy, Ibsen declared: "It is blessedly peaceful out here; no one I know; I read nothing but the Bible ..." Geoffrey Hill provides a new Preface to this third and revised edition of his great stage version of Brand.