Frank Wedekind’s play Erdgeist, featuring Lulu, was first published in 1895.
Erdgeist, often translated as Earth Spirit, is the first of Wedekind’s two major Lulu plays. It introduces Lulu as a powerful and controversial figure whose relationships expose the tensions between desire, respectability, possession, and social control.
The second play, Die Büchse der Pandora, followed in 1904. Together, the two dramas supplied the main literary foundation for later versions of Lulu, including G. W. Pabst’s 1929 film Pandora’s Box and Alban Berg’s opera Lulu.
The date can be confused with 1904 because that is the publication year associated with the second play. It can also be confused with the film’s 1929 release date. Erdgeist belongs to the late nineteenth-century German theatre, while its best-known screen adaptation arrived more than three decades later.