The Merchant of Venice is best known for its complex and ambiguous portrait of the Jewish moneylender Shylock - and of European anti-Semitism. Fascinating in its engagement with prejudice, the play is also a comedy of cross-dressing and disguise and a dramatic exploration of justice, mercy and vengeance. This volume contains the full text of the play with explanatory footnotes and marginal glosses for contemporary readers. A well-rounded selection of background materials not only illuminates anti-Semitism in early modern England but also provides context for other facets of the play, including its comic plot of love and marriage, its examination of usury and international trade and its themes of revenge and the law.

This beautiful book presents poems for hopefulness and happiness, with bright, uplifting illustrations from rising star Carolyn Gavin. This book of joyous and uplifting verse is a welcome beacon of hope and happiness in difficult and challenging times, collected together with beautiful illustrations and context for each poem. We all have days when we find ourselves in need of some positivity. In difficult times, the words of others can lift us up. Bright, joyful art to inspire hopefulness is combined with carefully curated poems, chosen to lift the spirits through the healing power of words. The book is divided into eight sections on the themes of hope, resilience & courage, joy, nature & escape, love, tranquillity, gratitude and comfort. Featuring a diverse range of writers from Oscar Wilde to Emily Dickinson, Robert Louis Stevenson to Maya Angelou, William Blake to Warsan Shire, the selections are accompanied by explanations and illuminating context that reinforce the positive mental health message. Combining uplifting lines of verse and joyful illustrations, this unique book provides a much-needed dose of hopefulness and happiness in turbulent times, whether as a thoughtful gift for someone in need of solace or a resource that can be turned to whenever we need to. Featuring: Carol Ann Duffy * Percy Bysshe Shelley * Maya Angelou * Emily Dickinson * Kahlil Gibran * Claude McKay * Langston Hughes * William Wordsworth * Emanuel Carnevali * James Weldon Johnson * Anne Sexton * William Ernest Henley * Siegfried Sassoon * David Wright * Ella Wheeler Wilcox * John Greenleaf Whittier * Ada Limon * Denise Levertov * William Blake * Edna St. Vincent Millay * Oscar Wilde * Rachel Field * John Gillespie Magee Jr. * Armand Garnet Ruffo * Robert Louis Stevenson * Ursula Bethell * John Donne * Paul Laurence Dunbar * Warsan Shire * Naomi Replansky * William Butler Yeats * Toru Dutt * William Cullen Bryant * E. Pauline Johnson * Lady Mary Wortley Montagu * Alfred, Lord Tennyson * Raymond Carver * Katherine Mansfield * Issa * W.S. Merwin * John Tobias * Ross Gay * Sara Teasdale * Elizabeth Barrett Browning * William Shakespeare * Tim Bowling * Mary Oliver * Christina Rossetti

The Republic of Nkosi(God) is on the brink of gender cleansing. Two rebel forces terrorise the republic's interior. In a race to overthrow the capital, they raid villages and steal children to build armies. Two young boys, Dorian and Severin, are stolen by a rebel force. Their friendship falls to pieces in the wake of familial loss and first kills. Can it be mended? At its surface, this story unveils the heart and tenacity of stolen children. The boys' journeys, from being stolen to their escape, unearth inner demons: reflections of a society that has been marred by its complicated and bloody history.