The Merchant of Venice (Deseret Alphabet edition) (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781986800167)

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor. He is generally considered the greatest dramatist of all time, the greatest English writer, and one of the greatest writers in any language. Shakespeare is best known for his plays, many written for his own acting troupe, which are still regularly staged today.

The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare's more problematic plays. The villain is the Jewish money-lender Shylock, and the play's happy ending includes his forced conversion to Christianity. All this is in accordance with the common prejudices of the sixteenth century English; but Shakespeare's genius shows through by his providing Shylock strong motivations and a rich psychology that lets him transcend casual Elizabethan anti-Semitism.

This book is in the Deseret Alphabet, a phonetic alphabet for writing English developed in the mid-19th century at the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah).