The Jew of Malta

Christopher Marlowe’s dark tragedy of vengeance opens with Barabas, the richest merchant in Malta, stripped of his fortune when the island’s governor confiscates Jewish wealth to buy off an invading Turkish fleet. Robbed of everything, Barabas answers with a campaign of poison, betrayal, and cold calculation that consumes his enemies and eventually himself. Written around 1590, the play mixes savage comedy with real menace, and its scheming antihero, aided by the equally ruthless slave Ithamore, helped shape the Elizabethan stage villain that Shakespeare later drew on for Shylock. Marlowe uses the island’s tangle of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish rivalries to expose the hypocrisy on every side. This free PDF and EPUB edition brings one of the era’s most provocative plays to modern readers.