The Merchant (play) would make a big profit, but this did not happen. He wrote a book about the play in 1999, "The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel". In this play, Shylock is a good man and Antonio's, the title character in Shakespeare's play, good friend. They bond in their love of knowledge and mutual dislike of the antisemitism in their community. Shylock's demand for a pound of flesh is meant as a jest, but he can not retract it. Both Shylock and Antonio are relieved when the demand is denied in court. Reviewing "The Merchant", critic Michael Billington
Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) the 1955 Arden Shakespeare second series edition of the play: "… nowhere in the play does Shylock show any tenderness towards his daughter …. … as a Jewess, loved by a Christian, Jessica stood in a fair way for the audience's sympathy …." In Munday's "Zelauto", Brisana (Jessica) opposes her father, Trinculo (Shylock), and eventually elopes with Rodolpho (Lorenzo); all presented sympathetically for the audience. Similarly, in Salernitano's 14th "novella", the daughter makes off with her father's money, to the same effect. "In both these examples, the father is avaricious …. It ranks him with the miserly fathers in Elizabethan