The story of Antonio, the merchant of Venice, who borrows money from Jewish moneylender Shylock and the disguised Portia, Antonio's love, who defends Antonio in court when Shylock demands "his pound of flesh" for failure to repay the loan with interest.

"One of the most frequently read and performed of all stage works, Shakespeare's Hamlet is unsurpassed in its complexity and richness. Now the most extensively annotated version of Hamlet to date makes the play completely accessible to readers in the twenty-first century. It has been carefully assembled with students, teachers, and the general reader in mind." "Eminent linguist and translator Burton Raffel offers generous help with vocabulary and...

"After encountering three witches, the warrior Macbeth waits to see if their predictions come true. Stung by ambition, Macbeth is persuaded by his conniving wife that the fastest way to fulfill the prophecy is to murder the king, which sets off a disastrous chain of events. As the tragedy unfolds, Macbeth's decisions lead to more ruin. He returns to the witches and believes that his future is secure--but is he interpreting the premonitions correctly?"--P....