Although other Shakespeare plays offer higher body counts, more gore, and more plentiful scenes of heartbreak, Othello packs an unusually powerful affective punch, stunning us with its depiction of the swiftness and thoroughness with which love can be converted to hatred, and forcing us to confront our complicity with social and political institutions that can put all of us—but especially the most vulnerable among us—at risk.

This edition features a variety of interleaved materials—from maps and manuscripts to illustrations and extended discussions of myth and politics—that provide a context for the social and cultural allusions in the play. Appendices offer excerpts from Shakespeare’s key sources and historical materials on marriage, jealousy, and the treatment of people of African descent in Renaissance England.