The Lottery (play)

She claims she has won a lottery, however, making another man pursue her for the fortune and forcing her original suitor to pay off the other for her hand in marriage, though she does not win.

It was a companion piece, in the form of ballad opera, that first ran on 1 January 1732 alongside of Addison's Cato.

Jack Stocks, a man wanting that fortune, takes on the identity of Lord Lace and seeks her in marriage.

Lovemore, a man who has romantically pursued her through the play, offers Stocks 1,000 pounds for Chloe's hand, and the deal is made.

[3] In the revised edition of the play, more characters are added who desire to win the lottery and there is a stronger connection made between Chloe and Lovemore.

[3] The revised version ends with Jack, her husband at the time, being paid off to no longer have claim to Chloe as his wife even though everyone knows that she did not win.

[8] Fielding expects that his audience understands how the lottery operated and focused on how gambling cannot benefit gamblers.

[9] This was not the only time Fielding relies on the lottery system; he also includes ticket vendors in his play Miss Lucy in Town and in his novel Tom Jones.

"[13] Edgar Roberts emphasises the importance of The Lottery as the play that "set the pattern for his ballad operas during the next three years at Drury Lane: happy, lightly satirical, and for the most part nonpolitical.