The year is 1643. Roberto, a young nobleman, survives war, the Bastille, exile and shipwreck as he voyages to a Pacific island straddling the date meridian. There he waits now, alone on the mysteriously deserted Daphne, separated by treacherous reefs from the island beyond: the island of the day before. If he could reach it, time and his misfortunes might be reversed. But first he must learn to swim...

Thrillingly plotted, engrossing, funny and moving, The Island of the Day Before is Umberto Eco's finest novel to date.

Every age gets the classics it deserves. I hope we deserve The Island of the Day Before... This novel belongs in the great tradition of Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Johnson's Rasselas and Voltaire's Candide. We are left energised, exhilarated by the sheer sensory excitement of the music's telling.