[02/17/26] Barnes, Djuna: Ladies Almanack

Dalkey Archive Press, paperback

Publication Date: February 17, 2026

Publisher Marketing: A "striking lesbian manifesto and a deft parody" by the acclaimed author of Nightwood. (--Library Journal)

Nearly 100 years after its original 1928 publication sent shockwaves through the literary scene, Ladies Almanack reigns as a brilliant modernist composition and one of the most audacious lesbian texts of the 20 ^th century. At once a scathing social satire and a love letter to the wealthy expatriates of Paris high society, the book delights in its cast of characters, who are clear analogues to Barnes' lesbian literary contemporaries--and the book's first readers.

Arranged by month and written in a pastiche of Restoration literature, Ladies Almanack records the life and lovers of Dame Evangeline Musset, a pseudonymous stand-in for Natalie Clifford Barney. Accompanied for the first time by Barnes' original Elizabethan-style woodcut illustrations, this new edition also features a sharp, impassioned introduction by Sarah Schulman reflecting on the ways in which lesbian lives have changed--and haven't--since the 1920s. After decades out of print, Dalkey Archive is proud to revive the Ladies Almanack for contemporary readers: a classic that delivers all the salacious drama of The L Word with the literary wit and wordplay of Shakespeare.