In 1894, after years of painful struggle and almost univeral rejection by his countrymen, the Swedish playwright August Strindberg suffered a spiritual collapse, an emotional breakdown that left him incapable of creative work. That Strindberg had reached a dead end isn’t surprising. Vilified in his homeland for naturalistic works like Miss Julie and The Father, he had already been through two divorces – a third was yet to come – as well as many years of impoverishment and the loss of his three children from his first marriage. His second marriage, to the Austrian journalist Frida Uhl, had just ended bitterly.