New synthetic routes towards the natural product psammaplin A were developed with the particular view to preparing diverse analogues for biological assessment. These routes utilize cheap and commercially available starting materials, and allowed access to psammaplin A analogues not accessible via currently reported methods. Preliminary biological studies revealed these compounds to be the most potent non peptidic inhibitors of the enzyme histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1, class I) discovered so far. Interestingly, psammaplin A and our synthetic analogues show class I selectivity in vitro, an important feature for the design and synthesis of future isoform selective inhibitors.