Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, Professor of English Literature, University of Sussex
This is an intense drama of love, deception, jealousy and destruction. Desdemona's love for Othello, the Moor, transcends racial prejudice; but the envious Iago conspires to devastate their
lives. In its vivid rendering of racism, sexism, contested identities, and the savagery lurking within civilisation, Othello is arguably the most topical and accessible tragedy from
Shakespeare's major phase as a dramatist.