Umberto Eco Books In Order

Publication Order of Save the Story Books

Publication Order of The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Chapbooks

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Umberto Eco
Author Umberto Eco was born on January 5, 1932 in the city of Alessandria in Piedmont, located in Northern Italy, and it was here that he went to high school. He worked as a philosopher, university professor, literary critic, and semiotician. In the year 1962, he married a German art teacher named Renate Ramge; the couple had a son and a daughter together.

He died from pancreatic cancer, which he had been suffering from for two years on February 19, 2016 at the age of 84. At the time he died, he was a professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, a post he had held since the year 2008.

He is the son of a man that was an accountant before he was drafted to fight in three different wars, whose name was Giulio Eco. He was one of thirteen kids. It is said Eco’s family name is supposed to be an acronym of ex caelis oblatus, which is Latin for a gift from the heavens. It was given to his grandpa, who was a foundling, by a city official.

His fiction work has enjoyed a big audience throughout the entire world, in many translations. Eco’s books are filled with subtle, sometimes multilingual, references to both history and literature. He cited James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges as the two modern authors who influenced his work the most.

Despite his dad urging him to become a lawyer, he went to the University of Turin so that he could study medieval philosophy and literature. He wrote his thesis on Thomas Aquinas and got a Laurea degree in philosophy in the year 1954. While studying at the university, he stopped believing in God and left the Catholic Church.

A group of avant-garde painters, artists, writers, and musicians that he made friends with at RAI became an influential and important art of his writing career. This was especially true after he published his first book in the year 1956, which was really an extension of his doctoral thesis. It also the start of his lecturing career at his alma mater.

“The Name of the Rose” was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. In the year 1986, a movie of the same name was released. It starred Sean Connery and was directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud.

“The Name of the Rose” is the first stand alone novel, which was released in the year 1980. It is 1327, and Benedictines in a wealthy Italian abbey have been suspected of heresy. Brother William of Baskerville comes in to investigate. His delicate missing is soon overshadowed by seven strange deaths, and Williams turns himself into a detective.

His tools are Aristotle’s logic, Aquinas’ theology, Roger Bacon’s empirical insights. It is all sharpened to an edge by some ferocious curiosity and wry humor. He gathers up the evidence, deciphers coded manuscripts and secret symbols. He also digs into the spooky labyrinth in the abbey, a place where the most interesting goings on happen at night.

The book is highly profound, as it crosses right on through many different genres. The two main plots at play in the book: the murder and the religious debates are woven together with ease, as they both feed off of each other. All while the tensions rise and the plot thickens.

“Foucault’s Pendulum” is the second stand alone novel, which was released in the year 1989. Bored with work, after they have read far too many manuscripts dealing with occult conspiracy theories, so three vanity publisher employees (Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi) come up with their own conspiracy. Just for fun. This satirical intellectual game “The Plan”, is a hoax that links the medieval Knights Templar with some other occult groups from modern back to ancient times.

It produces a map that indicates the geographic point from which all powers on earth can be controlled. It is a point that is found in Paris, France, at a place called Foucault’s Pendulum. In a fateful turn of events, this is one joke that gets all too real.

The three get more and more obsessed with The Plan, and they sometimes even forget all of this is only a game. Making things worse, other conspiracy theorists find out about The Plan, and take it all seriously. Belbo finds that he is the target of a real secret society that believes he still has the key to the Knights Templar’s lost treasure.

This book is huge on sheer scope and passionate ambition, and the entire read feels like a novel mixed in with a huge history lesson. It is a complex work of writing that requires hard work on the part of the reader. There is a ton packed into the book, and feels like Eco has fun cramming things such as philosophy, physics, mathematical puzzles, cultural mythology, and rituals, as well as many other things.

“The Island of the Day Before” is the third stand alone novel, which was released in the year 1995. In the year 1643, there is a violent storm in the South Pacific, and Roberto della Griva finds that he is shipwrecked-on a ship. He is taken from the Amaryllis, and has managed to get on board the Daphne, which is anchored in a beautiful island’s bay. The ship is fully stocked, but the crew has gone missing, he finds.

Roberto explores all of the different cabinets in the hold of the ship. He remembers different chapters from his youth. There is the siege of Casale. Ferrante, who is his imaginary evil brother. The useless chess move he learned in the Thirty Years’ War where he lost both his illusions and his dad. The lessons he learned on Reasons of state. Writing love letters, fencing, and blasphemy, too.

The books Eco writes are not simply easy to grasp, like any bestseller you might find at the airport. His books can be overwhelming in both the references and breadth for most readers. Each of Eco’s works feels like intertextual garlands of senses and signs which have been masterly contained into philosophical or historical fiction, thriller or detective novels.