Ghosts was written in 1881. The play is one of Henrik Ibsen's realistic dramas in which he explores problems and social issues. When it first opened it became something of a succés de scandale, dealing as it did with venereal disease and incest, highly sensitive and controversial issues for the time. Many theatres refused to stage the play. However, it was the play chosen to open the Théâtre Libre in Paris, one of the experimental theatres that paved the way for modern drama.

The title alludes to the deadly disease that Osvald has inherited from his father: syphilis. Ghosts is a metaphor for the sins that are passed on from generation to generation. One by one, the secrets that lie behind the family's solidly bourgeois facade are revealed until the walls come tumbling down. Yet ultimately Ibsen shows how a sense of guilt, personal integrity and an inner need for truth, can still manage to exorcise the ghosts of the past.