SOURCE: Backscheider, Paula R. Introduction to The Plays of Samuel Foote, Volume I, edited by Paula R. Backscheider and Douglas Howard, pp. vii-xxii. New York: Garland Publishing, 1983.

In the following essay, Backscheider explores Foote's works as instruments of satire with which to expose corruption and hypocrisy in British society.

Samuel Foote's plays prove that the Age of Satire did not die with Alexander Pope in 1744. Foote's early plays mocked the acting styles of the Covent Garden and Drury Lane company members and the idiosyncrasies of the best-known citizens of London. When he began to write full-length comedies, he ridiculed his countrymen's fads and affectations and lashed the cheats and opportunists who used English laws and institutions for their own gain. Were his work more literary, he would be recognized as belonging firmly in the tradition of Pope and Fielding. He, like they, selected a widespread vice, concentrated upon...