Regine May's commentary is intended for a wide audience: although less extensive than the latest Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius, it contains far more information than a typical reader meant for college students. On the whole, the amount of detail provided is appropriate both for scholarly consultation and for graduate level instruction. While one cannot expect the thoroughness typical of massive commentaries in usum doctorum, problems and obscurities are never ignored, but are treated in an accessible, and sometimes original manner.

The informative Introduction (1–50) is concurrently wide-ranging and concise, providing a discussion of: the author and his times; the genre of the ancient novel; the relationship of the Metamorphoses to the Onos and to the ancient novel in general; the inset tales; some key themes; the prologue; issues of truth and fictionality; the characterization of Lucius; philosophical and religious topics; ancient magic; language and style; the reception of the Metamorphoses; its manuscript tradition. M. does not go so far as to offer an overall interpretation of the novel, but inclines rather clearly towards the positions of Winkler and Harrison (33); perhaps, at least a cursory mention of different approaches would have been useful. The bibliography (51–62) is ample and up-to-date, and provides a good starting point for those who may occasionally need a more thorough treatment of certain topics. Some noteworthy absences exist, but the typical scope of commentaries in this series precludes the presence of a thoroughly comprehensive list of bibliographic references.

The Latin text is basically that of Maaike Zimmerman's 2012 OCT edition, with occasional disagreements, and is accompanied by a selective critical apparatus and by a translation that ‘is intended to be as close as possible to the Latin original, but not a grammatical crib’ (v). As in the other volumes from this series, the commentary is keyed to the translation rather than to the Latin text. As a consequence, consultation of the commentary is sometimes cumbersome, as many of M.'s notes concern the frequent idiosyncrasies and peculiarities of Apuleius’ language (see, for example, p. 116, where ‘a fair and square deal’ is defined as a colloquialism, rather than the original Latin ‘aequi bonique facio’). Despite this, M.'s work is not (only) primarily geared towards a non-specialized audience, and provides more than enough information to answer many of the numerous questions prompted by the text, as well as to stimulate further inquiry.

A scholarly reader will inevitably compare M.'s volume to Wytse Keulen's recent and very thorough commentary, also on the first book of the Metamorphoses (2007). This comparison demonstrates, however, that M.'s text is neither a reduction nor a mere simplification of Keulen's monumental work; rather, she sometimes explores new paths, and also disagrees with Keulen on several specific points. Her objections do not always lead the reader to a more convincing alternative interpretation, but they do often provide new and useful data: see, for example, the note on p. 112, where the setting of the spear-swallower's performance in front of the Stoa Poikile (1.4.2) is connected to the picture programme of the porch rather than to the Stoic philosophical tenets on Fate.

A lot can be praised in this commentary, and some things debated. One broad point worth addressing is that M. is always very keen on offering parallels, both verbal and thematic, to other passages of the novel and to ancient culture in general. While this wealth of information is often useful — for example, for Socrates’ characterization as a ghost (40 in the Introduction and passim in the commentary) — sometimes its specific purpose is not very clear. M.'s note on the connotations of cheese (111, on 1.4.1) is one example: she would associate the food with death in the novel because Lucius almost chokes on it at 1.4.1, and a man cuts his throat with a knife he has just used to cut cheese at 9.38.9 (one might add that Socrates eats cheese before dying, at 1.18.8). Yet such examples do not definitively prove that cheese is associated with death (and this is certainly not the case, for example, at 8.28.5); a simpler and plausible explanation for cheese's ubiquity is the fact that it was a common and cheap food. The precise identification of ‘polenta caseata’ at 1.4.1 seems to do little more than explain the ease with which Lucius almost chokes on it; furthermore, its possibly ominous implication would not add much to the interpretation of the passage. To take another example, the fact that the tortoise can have an apotropaic function in magic (150) might have some relevance for the interpretation of 1.12.1, but no source is offered to support this statement; instead, M. delineates Zeno's famous paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, but its significance to the episode remains, at best, very vague.

Typos and mistakes are rare, and I found only two that can produce some puzzlement: at 31, instead of ‘Apuleius implies …’ read: Plato implies …; at 167, instead of ‘Plautus St. 92’ read: Plautus Asin. 92.