The Name of the Rose.

ECO, Umberto.

$1,500.00

Item Number: 146943

New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1980.

First edition of one of the best-selling books of all-time, basis for the film starring Sean Connery. Octavo, original cloth. Translated from the Italian by William Weaver. Presentation copy, warmly inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “to Ken & Dee Gros Louis, friendly, by Umberto Ecco Bloomington June 10, ’83.” The recipients, Kenneth and Dee Gros Louis, were people of scholarly proclivities like Eco: Kenneth was a university official and English professor at Indiana University Bloomington, later Vice President of the Bloomington campus from 1980 to 1988 and Vice President of Indiana University and Chancellor of the Bloomington campus from 1988 to 2001; his wife, Dee was a prominent feminist scholar. Eco was awarded an honorary doctorate at Indiana University Bloomington in 1992 during Kenneth Gros Louis’ Vice Presidency. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket illustration from a manuscript of the Apocalypse. An exceptional presentation inscription.

This “erudite murder mystery,” first published in 1980 as Il Nome della Rosa, was semiotics professor Umberto Eco’s first novel and proved an international bestseller. Critically praised as a “brilliantly conceived adventure into another time” (SF Chronicle), the novel “encapsulates Eco’s semiotic theory, which describes how signs are produced and interpreted in the world. The novel presents clues for the reader to decode, but as the reader grapples with the novel’s deeper meanings, the mystery becomes secondary” (Columbia University Press). “An extraordinary work of novelistic art” (Harper’s). It has went on to sell over 50 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling books ever published. It has received many international awards and accolades, such as the Strega Prize in 1981 and Prix Medicis Étranger in 1982, and was ranked 14th on Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century list.