4S, 5S, 8S, 9S)- and (4R, 5S, 8S, 9S)-9-hydroxy-5,8-epoxy-henicosabutanolides 3b and 4b, respectively, have been successfully synthesized from very inexpensive L-glutamic acid The key step of the synthetic sequence is an alkylation of lactol acetates 5a,b with 2-(trimethylsilyloxy)-furan. Stereochemical relationship assignment of the obtained products were deduced from NMR data, and by chemical correlation.