This text, based on English Renaissance Drama (ISBN 978 0 393 97655 7), is accompanied by explanatory annotations and a detailed introduction. Contexts includes almost all known documents from the period concerning Mary Frith and passages from her 1662 autobiography . Excerpts from 1620s pamphlets give insight into how gender-bending trends were understood at the time. Thirteen critical essays chart the development of scholarly interest in The Roaring Girl from the first half of the twentieth century to today.