This book remains the standard edition of the Dialogus, providing a comprehensive treatment of the problems of authorship, date, form and style. This volume is intended to meet the needs of students and scholars increasingly working on ancient rhetoric, as the Dialogus constitutes an important link between the rhetorical works of Cicero on the one hand and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoriae on the other.

William Peterson was a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Principal of University College, Dundee.