SOURCE: Butler, Martin. “A New Way to Pay Old Debts: Massinger's Grim Comedy.” In English Comedy, edited by Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and John Kerrigan, pp. 119-36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

In the following essay, Butler examines the historical and political events that influenced A New Way to Pay Old Debts, contending that it reveals the anxiety of the aristocracy about losing power and status in a changing society.

The fate of Philip Massinger has been a curious one for a major writer of comedy. A New Way to Pay Old Debts and The City Madam are arguably the most enduring comic achievements to have been produced between Bartholomew Fair and The Country Wife, and they almost alone have kept Massinger's name alive, yet in recent times his reappraisal has been made largely on the basis of his strengths in non-comic genres. The range and solidity of his...