Unpublished drawings by Eco in the new edition of The Name of the Rose

Forty years after its first publication in December 1980, a new edition of Umberto Eco’s celebrated first novel, The Name of the Rose, has been released these days.

The new publication, published by La Nave di Teseo, features inside it unpublished drawings made by the writer himself, as well as preparatory notes.

In order to construct the complex plot of the novel, Eco used drawings, sketches, which turned out to be crucial even for the timing of the dialogues, such as in the case of the number of steps to be climbed, which was decisive for the length of the conversations between the characters.

“The edition with the preparatory drawings,” Elisabetta Sgarbi, founder of La Nave di Teseo, told Ansa, “gives an account of the thought and study behind the construction of a great novel.” So Eco had already imagined the characters and their appearance, setting, and places before he began writing the text of the novel. The sketches probably date from 1976-1977.

The Name of the Rose won the Strega Prize in 1981 and has been translated in over sixty countries around the world, selling over 50million copies.

And even today it never ceases to amaze and fascinate readers.

Unpublished drawings by Eco in the new edition of The Name of the Rose

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