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年出生于意大利的亚历山德里亚。博洛尼亚大学符号学教授，VS杂志领导人。他的学术性作品有《缺席的结构》（1968年）、《论一般符号学》（1975年）、《神话中的读者》（1979年）、《关于镜子》（1985年）、《阐释的极限》（1990年），以及在各报纸杂志发表的文章结集《来自帝国的边沿》（1997年）。《开放的作品》（1962年）被公认为是他学术著作中最重要的一部。

艾柯1980年出版第一部小说《玫瑰的名字》（获1981年斯特雷加奖），1988年又出版了《福科摆》（获1989年邦卡雷拉奖），1994年出版《昨日之岛》。1963年出版《小记事》之后过了三十年才于1992年出版了《小记事第二集》。其他作品还有：《悠游小说林》（1994年）、《康德和鸭嘴兽》（1997年）、《伦理作品五篇》（1997年）和《谎言和讥讽》（2000年）。