"For this updated edition of one of Shakespeare's most problematic plays, Tom Lockwood has added a new introductory section on the latest scholarly trends, performance and adaptation practices which have occurred over the last two decades. Investigating the latest critical frames through which the play has been interpreted, the updated introduction also focuses on recent international performances on stage and screen (including Al Pacino's performances on film and in Daniel Sullivan's production in New York, the Habima National Theatre's production for the Globe to Globe Festival, Jonathan Munby's touring production for the Globe performed in London, New York and Venice, and Rupert Goold's production for the Royal Shakespeare Company). Finally, new forms of adaptation are considered: a performance transposed to the different generic mode of a New York auction room, and the remaking of the play in Howard Jacobson's 2016 novel, Shylock Is My Name"--

"The magnificent sailing ships of the sixteenth century are an unseen presence throughout The Merchant of Venice. 'Argosies with portly sail' dominate the opening dialogue, and in the last scene our sense of an ending is satisfied by the news that three of Antonio's ships 'are richly come to harbour'. So it is highly fitting that the clearest indication within the play of the date at which it was written should be an allusion to a real ship of the period"--