SOURCE: Huebert, Ronald. Introduction to The Lady of Pleasure, by James Shirley, pp. 1-49. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986.

In the following excerpt, Huebert characterizes The Lady of Pleasure as a dramatization of decadence, regarding which Shirley's own stance is unclear.

The first reader of The Lady of Pleasure to have recorded a critical response to the play is Abraham Wright, who at some time near the middle of the seventeenth century made the following notation in his commonplace book:

Y^e best play of Shirleys for y^e lines, but y^e plot is as much as none. y^e latter end of y^e 4th act y^e scene twixt Celestine and y^e lord is good for y^e humour of neete complement. Aretina, who is y^e lady of pleasure a good part for y^e … expressing y^e many waies of pleasure and expences...