The Island of the Day Before (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Umberto Eco
- First Published: 1994
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The first half of the seventeenth century, mainly 1643
- Setting: Italy, Paris, and a ship off the coast of a Pacific island
- Principal Characters: Roberto Della Griva, Ferrante, Pozzo di San Patrizio, Monsieur de Saint-Savin, Lilia (The Lady), Father Caspar Wanderdrossel
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Love or romance, Self, Poetry or poets, Paris, Mental illness, Seventeenth century, Shipwrecks, Adventure
- Locales: Paris, France, Islands, Oceans, Italy
Umberto Eco’s earlier novels were the work of a semiotician who refused to suspend his scholarly proclivities while invading the field of fiction. Il nome della rosa (1980; The Name of the Rose, 1983) was a sort of mystery. Unlike the off-duty performances of scholars such as Dorothy Sayers and J. I. M. Stewart (otherwise Michael Innes), who delighted their fans with the frequently recurring adventures in crime of engaging sleuths such as Lord Peter Wimsey and Sir John Appleby, educated gentlemen who occasionally but only lightly imposed their learning on the reader,...
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