More than twenty years after its original appearance in Italian, "The Open Work" remains significant for its powerful concept of "openness"--the artist's decision to leave arrangements of some constituents of a work to the public or to chance--and for its striking anticipation of two major themes of contemporary literary theory: the element of multiplicity and plurality in art, and the insistence on literary response as an interactive process between reader and text. The questions Umberto Eco raises, and the answers he suggests, are intertwined in the continuing debate on literature, art, and culture in general. This entirely new edition, edited for the English-language audience with the approval of Eco himself, includes an authoritative introduction by David Robey that explores Eco's thought at the period of "The Open Work," prior to his absorption in semiotics. The book now contains key essays on Eco's mentor Luigi Pareyson, on television and mass culture, and on the politics of art. Harvard University Press will publish separately and simultaneously the extended study of James Joyce that was originally part of "The Open Work," entitled "The Aesthetics of Chaosmos: The Middle Ages of James Joyce." "The Open Work" explores a set of issues in aesthetics that remain central to critical theory, and does so in a characteristically vivid style. Eco's convincing manner of presenting ideas and his instinct for the lively example are threaded compellingly throughout. This book is at once a major treatise in modern aesthetics and an excellent introduction to Eco's thought.

安伯托・艾柯（Umberto Eco）1932年齣生於意大利的亞曆山德裏亞。博洛尼亞大學符號學教授，VS雜誌領導人。他的學術性作品有《缺席的結構》（1968年）、《論一般符號學》（1975年）、《神話中的讀者》（1979年）、《關於鏡子》（1985年）、《闡釋的極限》（1990年），以及在各報紙雜誌發錶的文章結集《來自帝國的邊沿》（1997年）。《開放的作品》（1962年）被公認為是他學術著作中最重要的一部。

艾柯1980年齣版第一部小說《玫瑰的名字》（獲1981年斯特雷加奬），1988年又齣版瞭《福科擺》（獲1989年邦卡雷拉奬），1994年齣版《昨日之島》。1963年齣版《小記事》之後過瞭三十年纔於1992年齣版瞭《小記事第二集》。其他作品還有：《悠遊小說林》（1994年）、《康德和鴨嘴獸》（1997年）、《倫理作品五篇》（1997年）和《謊言和譏諷》（2000年）。