Strindberg was born Johan August Strindberg on January 22,1849, in Riddarholm, Stockholm, Sweden. His father was a middle-class merchant, his mother a former servant. He suffered through an emotionally difficult childhood; when he was four his father went bankrupt, and when he was thirteen his mother died. A year after her death, his father married the family housekeeper.

As Strindberg grew older, he struggled to choose a profession. He worked as an elementary school teacher, studied medicine and philosophy, worked as a journalist, and had an appointment in the Swedish Royal Library, cataloguing holdings in the Chinese section. He also made two unsuccessful attempts at becoming an actor. It was during the first of these attempts that Strindberg began writing plays and, in 1870, his first two plays, The Freethinker and In Rome, were produced. His early plays were poorly received, however, and it was not until 1881 that...