Stationer's Register, unequivocally record Dekker as the sole author.
Furthermore, textual scholarship is happy to place NSS within the
Dekker cannon, while, as Hoy says 'no scholar has ever succeeded in
demonstrating Rowley's share in the play' <3>. Given that is has been
established that the play post-dates 1620, the possibility of a
Dekker revision of an earlier Rowley text would appear to be
implausible. The attribution to 'S.R.' remains unexplained, although
it may be noted in passing that the initials are the final letters of
Dekker's names, so it may just be a coded reference to Dekker. More
likely perhaps, it could be the result of the editorial confusion
which also pervades the compilation of the cast list.

Performance

There is no firm record of the play being performed, although the
foreword does make mention of it being enthusiastically received.
Such references are not, of course, to be taken at face value as they
would hardly be expected to say anything else; nevertheless, it does
strongly suggest that the play has been staged. In practice, the
printing of a text suggests either high popularity, in which case
sales could be expected to compensate for possible plagiarism, or
else relative unpopularity in which case publication was a last
attempt to generate some financial return before the play was
discarded. In this instance, the later circumstance is likely to
obtain, especially in view of the gap between writing and publication
dates.

ACTION OF THE PLAY

The sub-title given to the text in the Quarto edition is 'A contract