London Daily Telegraph, reviewing the first performance of “Ghosts”:
Ibsen’s positively abominable play.... This disgusting representation.... Reprobation due to such as aim at infecting the modern theatre with poison after desperately inoculating themselves and others.... An open drain; a loathsome sore unbandaged; a dirty act done publicly; a lazar-house with all its doors and windows open.... Candid foulness.... Kotzebue turned bestial and cynical.... Offensive cynicism.... Ibsen’s melancholy and malodorous world.... Absolutely loathsome and fetid.... Gross, almost putrid indecorum.... Literary carrion.... Crapulous stuff.... Novel and perilous nuisance.
Other London reviews of “Ghosts”:
Unutterably offensive.... Prosecution under Lord Campbell’s Act.... Abominable piece.... Scandalous.—Standard.
Naked loathsomeness.... Most dismal and revolting production.—Daily News.
Revolting, suggestive and blasphemous.... Characters either contradictory in themselves, uninteresting or abhorrent.—Daily Chronicle.
A repulsive and degrading work.—Queen.