Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist.

The House-Surgeon is a strange tale about a haunted house. Not that there is an actual ghost in evidence. Indeed, nobody has ever died in the house since it was originally built. But a strange all-pervading depression haunts the place intermittently which overwhelms its occupants.

When the current owner of the house tells the strange tale of the house to a fellow passenger, Mr. Perseus, on a trans-Atlantic steamer, he invites him down to the house to experience the horrible phenomenon himself. Mr. Perseus sets out to discover what lies behind this strange ghostless haunting.