[1] Massinger probably wrote the play in 1625, though its debut on stage was delayed a year as the theatres were closed due to bubonic plague.
Edmund Kean's version of Sir Giles, which debuted in 1816, was in particular a tremendous popular success, and drove the play's reputation through the remainder of the century.
The play was first published in 1633 in quarto by stationer Henry Seyle (his shop was "in S. Pauls Church-yard, at the signe of the Tygers head").
[3] Dramaturgically, A New Way to Pay Old Debts contains elements of melodrama, comedy of manners, realism, and social satire, in a distinctive combination.
In the Elizabethan era, Christopher Marlowe was the great innovator in the villain play, with Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus, and The Jew of Malta; Shakespeare's Richard III is another obvious example in the subgenre.
The power of the role of Sir Giles may lie in Massinger's success in depicting a blatant villain who has a quality of everyday believability.
The play illustrates the hardening of class distinctions that characterised the early Stuart era, leading up to the outbreak of the Civil War.
In A New Way to Pay Old Debts, in contrast, Lord Lovell would rather see his family line go extinct than marry Over-reach's daughter Margaret, even though she is young, beautiful, and virtuous.
In Act IV, scene i, Lovell specifies that his attitude is not solely dependent on his loathing of the father's personal vices, but is rooted in class distinction.
[5] The drama's class conflict can seem obscure to the modern reader, since Sir Giles Over-reach appears as an upper-class, not a lower-class figure: he is a knight and a rich man with large country estates, who lives the lavish lifestyle of the landed gentry.
[6] For a conservative moralist like Massinger, the upper classes, the "true gentry", have a right to run society insofar as they fulfil the moral and ethical obligations of their traditional roles.
Set in rural Nottinghamshire, the play opens with its protagonist, Frank Welborn, being ejected from an alehouse by Tapwell and Froth, the tavernkeeper and his wife.
The conversations in the scene supply the play's backstory, indicating that Welborn and Allworth are both members of the local gentry who have fallen victim to the financial manipulations of Sir Giles Over-reach.
Welborn has lost his estates and been reduced to penury, while young Allworth has been forced to become the page of a local nobleman, Lord Lovell.
The recollection makes Lady Allworth repent her harsh attitude toward the reprobate Welborn, and she offers him financial help; he rejects this, but requests a favour of her instead.
Young Allworth is nervous at this, suspecting that his patron will not be able to resist Margaret's charms; but Lovell is an honourable man, and sincerely promotes their match.
Sir Giles dismisses this as folly—but discovers that the text of his deed to Welborn's lands has mysteriously faded away (thanks to the trickery of Marall).
Allworth and Margaret state that they will turn control of Over-reach's estates to Lord Lovell, to make reparations for all to the people Sir Giles has cheated and oppressed.