He wrote it in order to reproduce the success of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, but Lillo's play received mixed reviews and only showed for three nights at Lincoln's Inn Fields, in November 1730, and for a one-night revival at Covent Garden in March 1738, reduced to two acts.

[4] In The London Merchant, the subject is an apprentice who is seduced by Sarah Millwood, a "lady of pleasure," and then struggles to atone for his indiscretion throughout the remainder of the play, with little success.

[5] Lillo redefined the subject of dramatic tragedy and demonstrated that middle and lower class citizens were worthy of tragic downfalls.

Lillo dedicates the play to Sir John Eyles, a prominent member of the merchant class in London, in a letter before the text and plot begins.

[8] It was dismissed as a "nauseous sermon" by Charles Lamb, though much admired by Lillo's contemporaries Samuel Richardson and Colley Cibber, who acted in the original production of the play.

[6] Instead of dealing with heroes from classical literature or the Bible, presented with spectacle and grand stage effects, his subjects concerned everyday people, such as his audience, the theater-going middle classes, and his tragedies were conducted on the intimate scale of households, rather than kingdoms.

[13] In his own day, his later plays, other than Merchant, were only moderate successes, and after his death old style tragedies and comedies continued to dominate the stage.