Frank Wedekind wrote the plays *Earth Spirit* and *Pandora’s Box*, which inspired the 1929 film.
Wedekind was a German playwright whose work challenged bourgeois sexual morality and censorship. *Earth Spirit* (*Erdgeist*) premiered in 1895, while *Pandora’s Box* (*Die Büchse der Pandora*) followed in 1904. Together they tell the story of Lulu, a magnetic figure whose relationships expose the hypocrisy and violence around her.
G. W. Pabst’s film compresses and reshapes both dramas, retaining Lulu as its center. Wedekind’s title deliberately echoes the ancient myth, but his plot is a modern theatrical tragedy rather than a Greek religious narrative. The plays also influenced Alban Berg’s opera *Lulu*, first performed posthumously in 1937.