(Applause Books). "The complete script to Frank Wedekind's symphony or rather a cacophony of deotic sexual rhetorics. Eric Bentley's achievement here as translator is a beautifully playable and juicy English; his larger gift is the opening to us of what must be ranked as among the supreme masterpieces of nineteenth-century theater." Donald Lyons, The New Criterion

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Spring Awakening is set in a small German town in the 1890s, where adolescent boys and girls grope their way towards knowledge and maturity against the blocks set up by parents and teachers in the name of "morality". Melchior, fearless in his pursuit of the truth, manages to retain his freedom of spirit, but his friends are not so lucky or strong. Wedekind's controversial play occupies a special place in modern theatrical history as a key work of the naturalist school and the principal precursor of German Expressionism.

Nicholas Wright's version of Wedekind's celebrated erotic masterpiece is the first to be based on the author's original text, restoring the clarity, the daring and the sexual explicitness of a modern masterpiece written a hundred years before its time. Lulu is the story of the decline and fall of a young woman possessed of a fatal combination of sexuality and innocence. She passes from German and Parisian high society to the streets of Jack the Ripper's London - destroying, and ultimately destroyed by, her lovers. Wedekind originally wrote his extraordinary 'monster tragedy' a full twenty years before the First World War. Finding no-one prepared to stage it on account of its sexual candour, he toned it down and rewrote it as two full-length dramas, which is how The Lulu Plays were published and produced throughout most of the twentieth century. Nicholas Wright's version, based on Wedekind's original text, reveals the author's original conception for the play. It was premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in 2001.

Two of Wedekind's most seminal plays, Earth-Spirit and Pandora's Box both focus on the actions of the young heroine Lulu, who embodies both animal sensuality and waif-like innocence, as she escapes a life on the streets, receives a society education, marries, takes on various lovers, becomes a dancer in a revue, is imprisoned for murder and encounters Jack the Ripper. When Earth-Spirit was premiered in Leipzig in 1898, Wedekind was vilified and persecuted for advocating unfeigned sexual pleasure and making his heroine a heartless whore. Death and Devil and Castle Wetterstein, the other plays that make up this volume, are essentially extensions of and complementary to the Lulu tragedies.

At once a dystopian fantasy and a critique of sexual norms, Mine-Haha describes a unique boarding institution for girls - part idyllic refuge, part prison - where pupils are trained only in the physical arts of movement, dance and music, before issuing into an adult world for which they have (unwittingly) been prepared. The narrator is an old woman recalling her strange childhood and the story is focused through the eyes of her earlier self. Mine-Haha was praised for its progressive outlook by Leon Trotsky in 1908, and has inspired two films - Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence (2004) and John Irvin's The Fine Art of Love (2005). It is here presented alongside two rare, complementary short fictional pieces: 'The Burning of Egliswyl' and 'The Sacrificial Lamb'.

A Student Edition of Wedekind's classic 1891 expressionist play about adolescent sexuality.Wedekind's notorious play "Spring Awakening "influenced a whole trend of modern drama and remains relevant to today's society, exploring the oppression and rebellion of adolescents among draconian parents and morals. This seminal work looks at the conflict between repressive adulthood and teenage sexual longings in a provincial German town.Highly controversial and with themes of sexuality, social attitudes and adolescence, the play is a popular and provocative text for study, especially at undergraduate level.This translation by Edward Bond first brought the play to English audiences when it premiered at the National Theatre in 1974. Receiving high praise ('scrupulously faithful both to Wedekind's irony and his poetry.' "The Times), "this version is now considered to be the definitive English translation.This Student Edition features expert and helpful annotation, including a scene-by-scene summary, a detailed commentary on the dramatic, social and political context, and on the themes, characters, language and structure of the play, as well as a list of suggested reading and questions for further study and a review of performance history.