New Mermaids are modern spelling, fully-annotated editions of important English plays. Each volume includes a critical introduction, biography of the author, discussions of dates and sources, textual details, a bibliography and information about the staging of the play.

Philip Massinger was a Renaissance playwright whose works are remembered for their social and political satire. Born in 1583, it is estimated that he either wrote or collaborated on some 53 plays by the time of his death in 1640. Massinger's works include the romances The Duke of Milan (1620), The Great Duke of Florence (1627), and The Roman Actor (1626), the comedies The City Madam (1632) and The Guardian (1633), and the tragicomedies The Bondman (1623) and The Renegado (1624). He also collaborated on 11 plays with John Fletcher, and may possibly have had a hand in Shakespeare and Fletcher's Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen.