The Modern Library, an imprint of Random House, has announced the reissues of four novels by Elaine Kraf (1946–2013) as part of its Torchbearers series, which spotlights women writers throughout history.
The first of the four novels, the 1979 feminist cult classic The Princess of 72nd Street, will be published in August, with an introduction by Melissa Broder. The remaining three—I Am Clarence (1969), The House of Madelaine (1971), and Find Him! (1977)—will be published throughout 2025.
World English rights were sold to Clio Seraphim for Modern Library by Monika Woods at Triangle House Literary.
“I immediately felt seen as soon as I started reading Elaine Kraf, whose books are like a rallying cry for any woman who has been made to feel ‘less than,’ ” said Seraphim, senior editor at Penguin Random House, in a statement. “I can’t wait to reintroduce these transcendent novels to contemporary readers.”
Other books in the Modern Library Torchbearers series include Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Sui Sin Far’s Mrs. Spring Fragrance, Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Nella Larson’s Passing, Marie Vieux-Chauvet’s Love, Anger, Madness, Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country, Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out, and Zitkála-Šá’s American Indian Stories.
