The Merchant of Venice is one of a series of introductions to Shakespeare's key plays.

It is perfect as an introduction before studying the play, for revision purposes and for reluctant and struggling readers. The play is retold as a straightforward, pacey narrative in chapter-book format. The book use the present tense and lots of dialogue (in present-day English) to recreate the experience of actually watching the play.

The text follow the original plays faithfully so students can acquire an accurate understanding of the action and plot. Memorable quotations from the original text (in italics) make this book perfect for exam crammers! Plus each book includes visual information to help pupils get to grips with the plot, the key characters and their important relationships in the play. The stories are all presented in the period of the play but with modern day language.

Written by award winning writer Stephen Rickard these are really accessible books. They are perfect for getting all pupils, whatever their ability, comfortable with each play before they go on to study it in its original form and a great all round introduction to Shakespeare.