General and recent aspects of chemical syntheses on angucyclinones and selected related natural products are summarized here. In the first part of this review on angucyclines, the chemical reaction used as a key step for the construction of the angucyclinone frame is discussed. In the second part, new members of the angucycline group of antibiotics, their bioactivity and recent biosynthetic studies including modern aspects of molecular biology (genetics) are reviewed.