Ruddigore or The Witches Curse is an opera by Arthur Sulivan and W.S Gilbert. The opera itself is revolving around a woman under a family curse to do bad deeds or else she'd be killed, and has tones about generational hauntings which one deals with that drives the story. 

This opera being released about a month prior to "The Canterville Ghost," shows us that this fear of a sort of haunting from the past or from a sort of inheritance (the woman being haunted from a bloodline, the Otis family in Canterville being haunted by a house) was previlant during that time, and many people recognized it and were able to deliver this perception in different forms. I think this also shows us historical themes that Wilde often wished to focus on both in "The Canterville Ghost," and also throughout his explanation for his disliking of America. 

Here I've included a drawing of a scene from Ruddigore, being from the ghost scene where the ancestors step out from their portraits to accuse someone of failing to carry out the requirements of the curse.