New Mermaids is a series of critical editions of important English plays. They were published from the early 1960s by

Ernest Benn Limited Ernest Benn Limited was a British publishing house. Sir John Benn Founded by Sir John Benn as Benn Brothers in 1880, it started as the publisher of the trade journal, ''The Cabinet Maker''. Ernest Benn After Sir John was elected to Parliame ...

The New Mermaids (Ernest Benn) - Book Series List
publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 3 November 2021. and later by

A & C Black A & C Black is a British book publishing company, owned since 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing. The company is noted for publishing ''Who's Who'' since 1849 and the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' between 1827 and 1903. It offers a wide variety of boo ...

. They feature lengthy introductions and annotated texts in modern spellings. Most New Mermaids editions are of

English Renaissance The English Renaissance was a Cultural movement, cultural and Art movement, artistic movement in England during the late 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginni ...

plays, but the series also includes some Restoration drama and plays by

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...

. Originally, the cover art for the volumes featured drawings of theatres of an appropriate era by C. Walter Hodges. Today, they feature a colourful,

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

-style design. The current general editors are Brian Gibbons of the

University of Münster The University of Münster (, until 2023 , WWU) is a public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over 120 fields of study in 15 departments, it is Germany's ...

, William C. Carroll of

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

and Tiffany Stern of

University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...

. The New Mermaids was the successor to the earlier Mermaid Series, a major collection of reprints of texts from English Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration drama.

References

{{reflist Book series A & C Black books Ernest Benn Limited books