Pandora’s Box (電子書)

Pandora’s Box is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the second part of his pairing of ’Lulu’ plays, the first being Earth Spirit (1895), both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed". In the original manuscript, dating from 1894, the ’Lulu’ drama was in five acts and subtitled ’A Monster Tragedy’. Wedekind subsequently divided the work into two plays: Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. It is now customary in theatre performances to run the two plays together, in abridged form, under the title Lulu. Wedekind is known to have taken his inspiration from at least two sources: the pantomime Lulu by Félicien Champsaur, which he saw in Paris in the early 1890s, and the sex murders of Jack the Ripper in London in 1888.

Benjamin Franklin Wedekind (July 24, 1864 – March 9, 1918), usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright. His work, which often criticizes bourgeois attitudes (particularly towards sex), is considered to anticipate expressionism, and he was a major influence on the development of epic theatre.