Naturally, A Manuscript

The novel The Name of the Rose begins with what appears to be a preface to the book itself. In the opening pages, a narrator who seems to be Eco describes finding a book in 1968 that reproduced a fourteenth-century narration by the monk, Adso of Melk. The preface continues to describe how the narrator then lost the book, only to find it again under strange circumstances. He also describes his choice to publish his edition of the manuscript as well as the editorial choices he has made.

Prologue; First Day; Second Day; Third Day

Next, readers find a prologue provided by Adso of Melk, written as an old man. The events he is about to relate are in the distant past and took place when he was a young Benedictine novice in the service of a Franciscan monk, William of Baskerville.

Adso shifts to the...