The Ghost Breaker (play)

The Ghost Breaker is a 1909 play by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard. It is a mixed genre work in four acts, labelled a "melodramatic farce" by its authors. There are four settings and seventeen characters. The story concerns a Spanish princess who helps a Kentucky gentleman escape from the law in Manhattan, and he in turn helps rid her castle of a spirit. The action of the play takes place on two separate days a week apart.

The play was first produced by the authors for a one week tryout in 1910. It was then produced by Maurice S. Campbell in 1913, starring H. B. Warner, with Katherine Emmet, Frank Westerton, Frank Campeau, and Sara Biala in support. Tryouts began in February 1913 at various locales in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. The Broadway premiere came in early March 1913, with the run lasting ten weeks. Due to other contract obligations of H. B. Warner, the play did not go on tour until the Fall of 1913, nor was it later revived on Broadway.

The play served as the basis for a 1914 silent film in which H. B. Warner reprised his stage role, a 1915 novelization of the play, a 1922 silent film, and the 1940 film The Ghost Breakers.