Umberto Eco

First US editions of three philosophical children's books by Umberto Eco, each signed by him.

• Sold as a set of 3.
• Umberto Eco (Italian).
• Illustrated by Eugenio Carmi (Italian).
• San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989 (Bomb, Astronauts)
• Milan: Bompiani, 1992 (Gnomes).
• Bomb and Astronauts bound in original color pictorial boards, and with original pictorial dust jackets, with Bomb jacket clipped.
• Gnomes bound in original white cloth boards lettered in red, and with original color pictorial dust jacket

In The Bomb and the General, the atoms that fuel a belligerent general's atomic bomb go on strike, demoting the general to a doorman in order "to make use of his uniform with all the braid." In The Three Astronauts, rival astronauts from the United States, Russia and China find common ground on Mars, where they overcome their prejudices and befriend a Martian they had intended to kill. In The Gnomes Of Gnù, a space explorer attempts to bring civilization to the planet of Gnù, whose peaceful inhabitants decline when they learn about the pollution and sickness rife on Earth. All three books feature ingenious mixed-media collages by the Italian abstractionist Eugenio Carmi. The first two, Bomb and Astronauts, appeared in Italian in 1966; the final title, Gnomes, followed in 1992. From 1989 to 1992, all three books were translated into English to capitalize on Eco's global reputation as the author of The Name of the Rose (1980) and Foucault's Pendulum

(1988).