With its savage indictment of the horrors of war as they affect women and children on the losing side, Euripides Troades has been one of the most regularly read, performed and adapted of Greek tragedies. It was first produced in 415 BC just after the Athenians slaughter of the male population of Melos and at the point where they were sending out the ambitious Sicilian expedition. It therefore has major contemporary political significance. Like Aeschylus Eumenides, it was performed as the third play in a thematically linked trilogy and, though the other two plays survive only in fragments, important inferences can be drawn about our interpretation of the surviving play and Euripides use of the trilogy form.

Lee's edition, first published in the famous "red Macmillan" series in 1976, is the most recent scholarly edition in English. The detailed commentary discusses text, language, interpretation and metre; there is a full introduction and for this paperback edition there is an additional up-to-date bibliography.