The Usurpers: or the Coffee-House Politicians. A farce (London, Jack Dyer, 1749), [4], 8, 17–70pp. BL: 161.f.71. ESTCT81092.

A little-known and obscure political dramatic satire that was not performed as a play and, indeed, was most likely not intended for performance. The author is anonymous, and the imprint is fictional (Jack Dyer is not recorded as the publisher of anything else, and no address is offered). It was published in early 1749, and is listed in the ‘Monthly Catalogue’ of new books in The London Magazine for April and May 1749 (XVIII, p. 244). Less than two decades after the play was published, it was almost unknown. William Rufus Chetwood, The British Theatre (London, R. Baldwin, 1752), p. 197, lists the play amongst the anonymous plays of the eighteenth century, without comment. David Erskine Baker, in his The Companion to the Play-house: or, an historical account of all the dramatic writers (and their works) that have appeared in Great Britain and Ireland, 2 vols (London, T. Becket and P. Dehondt, 1764) remarked ‘Whether this is a Play or Farce I know not, finding no mention of it any where but in the British Theatre; whichever it be, however, it was never acted; nor, I imagine, even intended for the Stage’. The play is not mentioned in The London Stage.