Asterix: Asterix and Cleopatra

The latest action-packed adventure from our indomitable Gauls, Asterix and the Griffin, is out now! How can lovely Queen Cleopatra show Julius Caesar that ancient Egypt is still a great nation? Her architect Edifis recruits his Gaulish friends to help him build a magnificent palace within three months. There are villainous saboteurs to be outwitted, but Asterix, Obelix and Getafix still find time to go sight-seeing - and leave their mark on the pyramids and the Sphinx's nose.

A cartoon drawn with such supreme artistry, and a text layered with such glorious wordplay, satire and historical and political allusion that no reader should ever feel like they've outgrown it.--TIME OUT, The Asterix books represent the very summit of our achievement as a literary race. In Asterix one finds all of human life. The fact that the books were written originally in French is no matter. I have read them all in many languages and, like all great literature, they are best in English. Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge, Asterix's translators since the very beginning, have made great books into eternal flames.--THE TIMES

Rene Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, and spent most of his childhood in Argentina, before eventually moving to Paris in 1951. He died in 1977. Albert Uderzo was born in 1927 in a small village in Marne, France. He met Rene Goscinny in 1951 and on 29 October 1959 their most famous creation, Asterix, made his first appearance on page 20 of Pilote. ASTERIX THE GAUL, their first album, was published in 1961 and there have now been 34 Asterix albums.