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Earth Spirit (Erdgeist) (1895) is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the first part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays; the second is Pandora's Box (1904), both depicting a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed". In German folklore an erdgeist is a gnome, first described in Goethe's Faust (1808). Together with Pandora's Box, Wedekind's play formed the basis for the silent film Pandora's Box (1929) starring Louise Brooks and the opera Lulu by Alban Berg (1935, premiered posthumously in 1937).

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 (German: Erdgeist, first printed 1895) and Pandora’s Box (German: Die Büchse der Pandora, first performed 1904). The premiere of Earth Spirit took place in Leipzig on 25 February 1898, in a production by Carl Heine, with Wedekind himself in the role of Dr Schön. Wedekind is known to have taken his inspiration from at least two sources: the circus pantomime Lulu, Une Clownesse danseuse by Félicien Champsaur, which he saw in Paris in the early 1890s, and the sex murders of Jack the Ripper in London in 1888. Although Lulu is not based on one specific, actually existing historical person (rather she is a composite and symbolic figure), the Lulu character may have been partially inspired by Lou Andreas-Salomé, whom Wedekind had met in Paris, but who had rejected his advances.

Lulu's character may also partly been based on the French vaudeville artist Eugénie Fougère. During act I, Lulu stated in response to a question about her dancing, "I learned in Paris. I took lessons from Eugenie Fougère. She let me copy her costumes too." Wedekind probably met Fougère (also known as Fou Fou) personally during his sojourns in Paris in 1892–1894, when he frequented the city's music halls and vaudeville theatres regularly. In a letter written by the playwright in 1899, Wedekind wrote: "On the first evening of my stay here, I was in Folies Bergêre, saw Eugenie Fougère, a little wild, but didn't take the opportunity to renew our acquaintance." He was impressed by the extravagant variety artist, and also referred to her in an interview with the Spanish vaudeville dancer La Tortajada for the German satirical weekly magazine Simplicissimus saying that "she was the best dancer I had seen so far in her genre."