Plato as Unreliable Narrator

We owe Ariel Helfer a good deal of gratitude for his latest effort, a translation of Plato’s Letters that brings to the American audience, for the first time perhaps, the only things Plato wrote in his own name, as opposed to philosophical theater in dialogue form, therefore almost the only thing of an autobiographical character we have concerning the most famous philosopher of all time. But as soon as we say this much, we’re in for a shock: How is it that our academics have not yet studied to death this unique resource? Why don’t we concern ourselves with it whenever we assign Plato’s Republic or the Symposium or the Apology of Socrates to students, indeed to all interested readers?