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The three Parnassus plays were produced at St. John's, Cambridge, as part of the college's Christmas entertainments at the latter end of the 16th century. Authorship of the plays is uncertain, nor is it known if they were all the work of the same man. John Weever has been suggested as author of the first play; the satirist Joseph Hall has been seen as an influence on – if not the author of – the other two, though recent statistical tests bring Hall's authorship into question. The dramatist John Day has also been proposed as a possible author.

The first play appeared in 1598. Its proper title is The Pilgrimage to Parnassus, and it tells the story of two boys, Philomusus and Studioso, who set off with high hopes to study at Cambridge. The later plays – The Returne from Parnassus (I) (1598/9) and its sequel The Returne from Parnassus (II) (1601/2) – develop this theme, showing what happens to the increasingly disillusioned students after they leave Cambridge and try to find employment.

The Return from Parnassus (II) is the most accomplished and longest work of the three, containing more characters, varied scenes and sharper dialogue. It was popular enough to be printed in 1606, going through two editions in that year. It has long been of interest to literary historians as it contains comments on the work of William Shakespeare, whose poetry is rather patronizingly praised, and a scene in which the two students audition for jobs in an acting company before characters called Richard Burbage and William Kempe. In addition to the Shakespeare connection, the play contains many commentaries and parodies of other Renaissance dramatists, including Ben Jonson, John Marston, Thomas Nashe, and Christopher Marlowe. As its main focus, however, the Returne (II) is a scathing attack on the practice of simony, or the buying and selling of church offices.

The two earlier plays were not known until Rev. W. D. Macray, the librarian at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, discovered them amongst the manuscript collection of Thomas Hearne. He brought out the complete comic trilogy in 1868. The manuscript for The Returne from Parnassus (II) (which titles the play The Progresse to Parnassus) is housed in the Folger Shakespeare Library. The most recent edition of the plays appeared in 1949, edited by the Oxford scholar J.B. Leishman. Currently, students at the College of William and Mary are editing the text in order to make it accessible for an undergraduate audience.

The only book-length treatment of the Parnassus plays is Paula Glatzer's The Complaint of the Poet: The Parnassus Plays published in 1977.