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This edition is quite possibly the best available, with Dancy's notes and introduction very useful. Dancy's book "Berkeley: An Introduction" is a useful supplement for someone wanting to understand Berkeley.
As for the work itself it's a recasting of Berkeley's earlier work the Principles into dialogue form. Quite what the point of this was since the Principles were already easy to read is unclear, (although a case could be made that the Dialogues require less prior knowledge of Locke than the Principles did and are therefore a better introductory work) but it's difficult to be sorry that he did as he writes the dialogue form so well, easily the best since Plato, and in my opinion probably marginally better than Plato. He handles the character who he's trying to refute much better than Plato ever did. Unfortunately his ideas aren't on a level with Plato's. As with the Principles his writing sweeps you up and it almost convinces you that perhaps matter doesn't exist and the mind is all there is, but once again take a step back and the flaws become all too apparent.
Berkeley's too important to ignore though, and besides his books are a pleasure to read. You can't do better than this edition.
As for Berkeley himself, he probably needs no introduction from me. Arguably the most judicious commentary on his thought is that of T.H. Green, who in his great _Introduction_ to Locke and Hume remarked as follows:
"His [Berkeley's] purpose was the maintenance of Theism, and a true instinct told him that pure Theism, as distinct from nature-worship and daemonism, has no philosophical foundation, unless it can be shown that there is nothing real apart from thought. But in the hurry of theological advocacy, and under the influence of a misleading terminology, he failed to distinguish this true proposition -- there is nothing real apart from thought -- from this false one, its virtual contradictory -- that there is nothing other than feeling. The confusion was covered, if not caused, by the ambiguity, often noticed, in the use of the term 'idea.' This to Berkeley's generation stood alike for feeling proper . . . and for conception, or an object thought of under relations. . . . Misled by the phrase 'idea of a thing,' we fancy that idea and thing have each a separate reality of their own, and then puzzle ourselves with questions as to how the idea can represent the thing . . . . These questions Berkeley asked and found unanswerable. There were two ways of dealing with them before him. One was to supersede them by a truer view of thought and its object, as together in essential correlation constituting the real; but this way he did not take. The other was to avoid them by merging both thing and idea in the indifference of simple feeling . . . -- an attempt which contradicts itself, since it virtually admits [the] existence [of such oppositions as inner and outer, subjective and objective] while it renders them unaccountable." [_Hume and Locke_, 1968 Apollo edition, pp. 140-142.]
This summary may not be quite adequate to Berkeley's thought overall, as later in life he does appear to have come round to a view not altogether unlike Green's. However, it seems to me to be an eminently fair assessment of the Berkeley represented in the present volume.
At any rate Berkeley was a fascinating thinker and this volume is as good an introduction to him as is available. The _Dialogues_ should eventually be read in conjunction with the _Principles_ (which they were intended to support), but anyone looking for a single volume in which to meet this great and seminal philosopher will be safe in beginning with this one.
How do you do it? You take seemingly mundane texts like "Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonus" and turn them into hilarious works of absurdity. Before, I had never understood Hylas's objection to Philonus's Pain/Pleasure argument. His sentence structure was just TOO coherent--I think the fault was in my translation. But after reading your version I finally get it! Particularly when he says "Hold, Philonus, I now see what it was delude time. You asked whether heat and cold, sweetness at were not particular sorts of pleasure and pain; to which simply, that they were." (verbatim quote, Location 188) This is one of literally hundreds of quirky changes you made that make the text so much easier to understand! Even on the first page your original interpretation shines through with every sentence! Unfortunately, I don't have time to pinpoint every little gem of genius you put into this book, but any reader who wants to should download this book and see for themselves what this text has to offer. I can't ever imagine why it's free!
Sincerely,
A person who understands the English language
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