Round-up – New Classics, February 2025
from Baker and Bloch to Poe and Suetonius
Dear classics readers,
Here’s a round-up of new classics titles coming out this month.
Some are appearing in English translation for the first time: Josephine Baker’s memoir, for example, which was originally published in French in 1949; and a new selection of Osamu Dazai short stories.
This month also sees the publication of a major new translation of Suetonius by
, acclaimed translator of Herodotus’s Histories and co-presenter of the podcast The Rest is History.I am particularly excited about the reissue of My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunket, which sounds like a literary romp. The Houston Post said it ‘will leave you so giddy you’ll go and kick sand in somebody’s face’. Penguin say it’s perfect for fans of A Confederacy of Dunces – I can’t wait!
Fearless and Free by Josephine Baker (1949)
Funny, candid and unconventional: the wildly famous but elusive Josephine Baker tells her own story in this enchanting memoir. Baker took Paris by storm in the 1920s, dazzling audiences with her humour, beauty and effervescence on stage. She became an icon. Hemingway, Cocteau and Picasso admired her; Shirley Bassey adored her. It was said she strolled the streets of Paris with her pet cheetah who wore a diamond collar. Later, as one of the most recognisable women in the world, she became a spy for the French resistance and was awarded the Légion d’honneur for military service. After the war she became increasingly interested in civil rights, and in 1963 she spoke at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King. All this from a girl of mixed heritage, born in Missouri to a poor mother and a father she did not know.
UK: Vintage Classics | 288 pages | translated by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis | introduction by Ijeoma Oluo
US: Tiny Reparations Books | 304 pages | translated by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis | introduction by Ijeoma Oluo
Pleasant Dreams by Robert Bloch (1960)
Published just a year after his more famous Psycho, Pleasant Dreams finds Robert Bloch leaving behind his earlier Lovecraftian influences to find his own style and voice in this collection of masterful tales, in which the horror is often laced with an undercurrent of pitch-black humor. This is the first-ever unabridged reprint of the original limited edition.
UK / US: Valancourt Books | 240 pages | introduction by Joe R. Lansdale
No One Knows by Osamu Dazai (1930s and 40s)
Osamu Dazai was a master raconteur who plumbed―in an addictive, easy style―the absurd complexities of life in a society whose expectations cannot be met without sacrificing one’s individual ideals on the altar of conformity. This collection of fourteen tales―a half-dozen of which have never before appeared in English―is based on a Japanese collection of, as Dazai described them, “soliloquies by female narrators.”
UK / US: New Directions | 256 pages | translated by Ralph McCarthy
Woman Hating by Andrea Dworkin (1974)
Andrea Dworkin’s blazing, prophetic debut argued that a deep-rooted hatred of women has been ingrained in society for centuries – and still governs us today. From fairy tales to erotic novels to witch-burnings, she uncovers the ways in which male violence and oppression have been normalized throughout history, and points the way to liberation.
UK: Penguin Modern Classics | 224 pages
US: Picador | 224 pages
Lost Horizon by James Hilton (1933)
One of the greatest classic adventure stories ever told. An eclectic group of English and Americans are airlifted out of Baskul in Asia when civil war takes hold. Their small plane crash-lands deep in the Himalayas, where they are rescued by a guide who leads them to a monastery called Shangri-La, hidden away in the mountains of Tibet. There, the remarkable inhabitants revel in good health and extraordinary longevity. As the tense and intricate plot unravels, who will succumb to the charms of Shangri-La and who will be desperate to escape?
UK: Macmillan Collector’s Library | 288 pages
US: Harper Perennial | 241 pages
Yesterday Will Make You Cry by Chester Himes (1952)
Thrill-seeking teenager Jimmy Monroe is serving a twenty-year sentence for robbery in the state penitentiary, where terror and chaos reign, corrupt guards inflict casual violence, and men try to preserve their dignity amid isolation and inhumanity. When a fire breaks out, setting hell and mayhem loose, it seems Jimmy’s entire world is unravelling. But as he develops a tender relationship with fellow convict Rico, hope begins to glimmer, and, through his eventual foray into writing, he approaches something resembling redemption.
UK: Penguin Modern Classics | 400 pages
US: Vintage | 400 pages
My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunket (1983)
Eliot Weiner – snob, shameless opportunist, Morris dancing-obsessive – is on a mission. He has got wind of a trunk of bawdy love letters by Warren Harding, ‘the shallowest President in history’, now guarded by his octogenarian mistress on her crumbling Hollywood Hills estate. They could reignite his failing academic career – and there’s no depth to which he won’t stoop, no preposterous scheme he won’t undertake, to get at them.
UK: Penguin Modern Classics | 304 pages | foreword by Danzy Senna
US: New Directions | 256 pages | foreword by Danzy Senna
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)
The only novel completed by the master of the short-story form, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym relates the rollicking adventures of a boy from Nantucket as he boards a succession of ships and travels in the farthest regions of the southern hemisphere. On the way, he experiences the hardships and dangers of life at sea, surviving a violent storm, stowing away on a whaling ship and being reduced to the most extreme measures by hunger. Alongside Pym’s exploits, this collection includes many celebrated tales, such as ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, ‘The Gold Bug’ and ‘Hop-Frog’, as well as Poe’s second, unfinished novel, The Journal of Julius Rodman.
UK / US: Alma Classics | 388 pages
The Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius (121 AD)
Placing each Caesar in the context of the generations that had gone before, and connecting personality with policy, Suetonius injected flesh and blood into their stories, which continue to inform how we understand the drama of power today. Their shortfalls, foreign policy crises and sex scandals are laid bare; we are shown their tastes, their foibles, their eccentricities; and we sit at their tables and enter their bedrooms. That Rome lives more vividly in people’s imagination than any other ancient empire owes an inordinate amount to Suetonius, and now award-winning author and translator
brings us even closer in a new, spellbinding translation.UK / US: Penguin Classics | 448 pages | translated by
The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse (800 BC - 100 AD)
The poems in this lively, wide-ranging and richly enjoyable anthology are the work of priestesses and warriors; of philosophers and statesmen; of teenage girls, concerned for their birthday celebrations; of drunkards and brawlers; of grumpy old men, and chic young things. Their authors write – or sing – about hopes, fears, loves, losses, triumphs and humiliations. The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse is a volume without precedent. It brings together the best of two traditions normally treated in isolation, and in doing so tells a captivating story about how literature and book-culture emerged from an oral society in which memory and learning were transmitted through song.
UK / US: Penguin Classics | 1,008 pages | translated by
| afterword by Glenn W. MostThe book descriptions above are taken from the publishers’ online blurbs.
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Thank you for including Osamu Dazai's No One Knows. I have been curious about his works and will add this to my list.
Thanks! I'll add some of these to my reading list.