Ghosts

Ghosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, first written in 1881 and first performed in 1882 in Chicago. It tells the story of Helen Alving, a woman who is about to open an orphanage which she has dedicated to her late husband, despite the fact that while he was alive, he was unfaithful to her. As the play goes on, she discovers that her son Oswald has syphilis and that he has fallen in love with who Helen believes to be his half-sister. After a tragedy concerning the orphanage, Helen is left having to make a very difficult decision regarding Oswald. A critical commentary on 19th-century morality, the play immediately generated strong controversy and negative criticism because of its subject matters, which includes religion, venereal disease, incest, and euthanasia. The title of the play in Danish is Gengangere, which could be more accurately translated as 'ones who return'; it has a double meaning of both 'ghosts' and 'events that repeat themselves', so the English title Ghosts is rather inadequate.

Part of Anne Haight's List of Banned Books.

This book has 24,583 words, and was originally published in 1881. This is a translation by William Archer.