Recommendations
Books Like The Merchant of Venice
Best books to read after The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Readers who love The Merchant of Venice are drawn to its combination of the Portia-Bassanio romantic plot, Shylock's 'Hath not a Jew eyes?' speech, his defeat in court, and the play's fundamental ambiguity about whether Shylock is villain or victim. They want works that deal with the representation of Jewish characters in literature, legal justice, romantic comedy, and the most controversial play in the Shakespeare canon.
- 1Buy
Shylock Is My Name
by Howard Jacobson
The Hogarth Shakespeare retelling in which a contemporary Shylock appears in modern Cheshire — Jacobson's reworking is the most sustained meditation on the character and his meaning by a major Jewish novelist, and the best modern literary engagement with the play.
- 2Buy
The Jew of Malta
by Christopher Marlowe
The Marlowe play that preceded and shaped Shakespeare's Shylock — Barabas the Jew of Malta is the theatrical predecessor of Shylock; reading both together reveals how Shakespeare both drew on and departed from Marlowe's more cartoonishly villainous Jewish character.
- 3Buy
Ivanhoe
by Walter Scott
The historical novel with Rebecca, another Jewish character who is treated unjustly by a Christian society — Scott's Rebecca is the most important sympathetic Jewish female character in English fiction before the 20th century; the tradition of representing Jewish characters that runs alongside Shakespeare's.
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Daniel Deronda
by George Eliot
The most important Victorian novel about Jewish identity — Eliot's last novel is a sustained examination of Jewish identity, anti-Semitism, and the question of belonging that the Merchant of Venice raises but cannot resolve; the best 19th century literary engagement with questions the play opens.
- 5Buy
The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
The historical document that most immediately shows why The Merchant of Venice's treatment of Shylock is ethically difficult — Anne Frank's diary is the most direct reminder of what anti-Semitism means when it is enacted rather than staged.
- 6Buy
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
The Irish Catholic novel that is the closest parallel to Shylock's experience of belonging to a marginalized group in a dominant society — Stephen Dedalus's experience of Irish Catholic identity in Protestant-dominated Ireland shares the structural dynamics of Shylock's position in Venice.
- 7Buy
Portia
by The Complete Works (Arden edition)
For readers who want to explore Portia's role — the Arden Third Series edition with Drakakis's notes is the best resource for understanding Portia as a character; her disguise as a lawyer makes her one of the most significant female characters in Shakespeare.
- 8Buy
Much Ado About Nothing
by William Shakespeare
The companion romantic comedy written in the same period — Much Ado's Beatrice is the closest Shakespeare character to Portia in wit, intelligence, and legal sharpness; reading both together reveals Shakespeare's sustained interest in women of exceptional verbal and moral intelligence.
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