Sheffield's Introduction does a nice job of explaining the backgrounds of most characters - though more details appear in the Glossary of Names. She also helps the reader understand the significance - within the text and within the historical setting - of both eros and of symposia. She then offers a brief account of each speech, showing how the early speeches relate to each other as well as how each raises aspects of problems confronted in Socrates' speech. Sheffield then offers a more detailed analysis of Socrates' speech, the speech in which Socrates relates the conversation that he may have once had with a woman named Diotima. Sheffield's account draws on her compelling recent book, Plato's Symposium: 'The Ethics of Desire.' (...) Following the Introduction is a brief Chronology, a regrettably brief bibliography ('Further reading'), a Translator's Note, and the text of the dialogue. The book ends with a very thorough glossary of Greek terms as well as a glossary of names. These last are quite useful, and would clearly benefit both undergraduate and postgraduate readers. (...) The translation itself is clear and intelligible, and has a helpful if almost frightening number of footnotes (227 notes for the dialogue's 51 Stephanus pages). Some notes offer the transliterated Greek word, while others contain extensive historical or philosophical information for the reader, as with note 15, which details the typical seating arrangements at symposia.' (YANCY HUGHES DOMINICK in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.04.63).