Books and Manuscripts

Eco, Umberto
The Name of the Rose
San Diego, etc.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, (1983). First American edition. 8vo. (vi), 502 pp. Signed by Eco on title-page. Publisher's white cloth over brown paper-covered boards, stamped in gilt; foxing to edges; illustrated endpapers, lightly foxed; in original unclipped illustrated dust-jacket. Contursi A021d

Lot includes: First American edition of Postscript to The Name of the Rose (1984); an inscribed copy of Reflections on The Name of the Rose (1989); Haft, Adele J., et al., The Key to The Name of the Rose (2008); Bright Summaries edition of The Name of the Rose (2017). 

A fine signed first American edition of Umberto Eco's debut and most celebrated novel, an historical murder mystery set in a 14th century Italian monastery. Since its publication in 1980 it has become one of the best-selling novels of all time, selling over 50 million copies worldwide. The winner of the Strega Prize in 1981 and the Prix Médicis étranger in 1982, it was adapted into a film in 1986 by Jean-Jacques Annaud, starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater.