Daisy Dunn

Biography

Dr Daisy Dunn is an award-winning classicist and author of eight books, including The Missing Thread, a New Yorker book of 2024. 

Daisy is best known as the biographer of major literary figures from the ancient world, including the Latin love poet Catullus and the two Plinys, but she has also written a classicist’s portrait of Oxford between the two world wars – the Runciman Award-listed Not Far from Brideshead, as featured on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book. 

A love of ancient history, Greek and Latin led Daisy to read Classics at the University of Oxford, after which she took an MA from the Courtauld Institute and PhD from UCL. 

She writes widely for the press, including as chief radio critic of The Spectator, and is the long-standing editor of ARGO: A Hellenic Review. Daisy also broadcasts regularly on both radio and television; recent credits include A Good Read on BBC Radio 4, Legends of Troy on National Geographic, and Queens of Combat on PBS/Channel 5. Her first and only pet was a grasshopper. 

Daisy’s books in order of publication (newest first) are:

Ovid: The Metamorphosis of Rome’s Poet of Love (forthcoming, 2027)

The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women who Shaped It (2024)

Not Far From Brideshead: Oxford Between the Wars (2022)

Homer: A Ladybird Expert Book (2019)

Of Gods and Men: 100 Stories from Ancient Greece and Rome (2019)

In the Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny (2019)

The Poems of Catullus: A New Translation (2016)

Catullus’ Bedspread: The Life of Rome’s Most Erotic Poet (2016)