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It lists major numbered sections spanning the unfolding narrative arc, then begins with Severian’s first-person account. Severian introduces his true name and titles, explains his manuscript-writing across time, and describes the strange ship environment and air-cloak technology used aboard craft that sail between suns, establishing tone and setting.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-urth-of-the-new-sun-contents-i-the-mainmast/323873/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-urth-of-the-new-sun-contents-i-the-mainmast/323873.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Lucas Martin","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-03","2026-09-21",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",15,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"What is included at the start of the document besides the story text?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"It provides a detailed Contents section listing many numbered chapters, followed by the opening of Chapter I, “The Mainmast.”","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"Who is the narrator introduced in the excerpt and what key roles does he claim?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"The narrator is Severian. He states his names given by friends, soldiers, and foes, and describes himself as the last Autarch of the Commonwealth, ruling the world called Urth.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"How does Severian describe the act of writing and its relation to time?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"He explains that he cast one manuscript into the seas of time and begins again, recounting how he previously recreated a book from memory while writing aboard the ship and later returned to the task.”","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},323873,1790400311,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":140,"language":141,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":142,"faqs":143,"seo_title":144,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":145,"read_time":146},8796095360427,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_994ba38a5ba835b3df7d355c54d3ed8d","The URTH of the NEW SUN  \nGene Wolfe  \n1987  \nAwake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night  \nHas flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:  \nAnd Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught  \nThe Sultan's Turret in a Noose ofLight.  \n—FITZGERALD  \nContents  \nTable of Contents ii  \nI The Mainmast 1  \nII The Fifth Sailor 7  \nIII The Citizens of the Sails 17  \nIV The Hero and the Hierodules 23  \nV A Death and the Dark 28  \nVI A Death in the Light 34  \nVII The Empty Sleeve 40  \nVIII The Empty Air 45  \nIX Interlude 51  \nX Skirmish 57  \nXI The Semblance 62  \nXII The Battles 67  \nCONTENTS iii  \nXIII The End of the Universe 73  \nXIV Yesod 79  \nXV The Epitome 83  \nXVI The Isle 88  \nXVII The Examination 93  \nXVIII Silence 98  \nXIX The Coiled Room 104  \nXX Tzadkiel 111  \nXXI Descent 116  \nXXII The Ship 121  \nXXIII The Captain 126  \nXXIV Passion and the Passageway 131  \nXXV Gunnie and Burgundofara 135  \nXXVI The Return to Urth 140  \nXXVII The Village Beside the Stream 145  \nXXVIII Among the Villagers 150  \nXXIX Ceryx 155  \nXXX Zama 161  \nXXXI To the Alcyone 166  \nXXXII Aboard the Alcyone 171  \nXXXIII Saltus Again 177  \nXXXIV Nessus Again 182  \nCONTENTS iv  \nXXXV The Citadel Again 187  \nXXXVI The Book of the New Sun 192  \nXXXVII The Claw of the Conciliator Again 201  \nXXXVIII The Brook Beyond Briah 207  \nXXXIX Severian from His Cenotaph 212  \nXL Ding, Dong, Ding! 216  \nXLI The Evening Tide 221  \nXLII The Morning Tide 226  \nXLIII The Runaway 235  \nXLIV The Sunken City 240  \nXLV Old Lands and New 244  \nXLVI Apu-Punchau 249  \nXLVII Darkness in the House of Day 255  \nXLVIII The Urth of the New Sun 263  \nAppendix—The Miracle of Apu-Punchau 269  \nI  \nThe Mainmast  \nHaving cast one manuscript into the seas of time, I now begin again. Surely it is absurd; but I am not—I will not be—so absurd myself as to suppose that this will ever find a reader, even in me. Let me describe then, to no one and nothing, just who I am and what it is that I have done to Urth.  \nMy true name is Severian. By my friends, of whom there were never very many, I was called Severian the Lame. By my soldiers, of whom I once commanded a great many, though never enough, Severian the Great. By my foes, who bred like flies, and like flies were spawned from the corpses that strewed my battlefields, Severian the Torturer. I was the last Autarch of our Commonwealth, and as such the only legitimate ruler of this world when we called it Urth.  \nBut what a disease this writing business is! A few years ago (if time retains any meaning), I wrote in my cabin on the ship of Tzadkiel, re-creating from memory the book I had composed in a clerestory of the House Absolute. Sat driving my pen like any clerk, recopying a text I could without diYculty bring to mind, and feeling that I performed the final meaningful act—or rather, the final meaningless act—of my life.  \nSo I wrote and slept, and rose to write again, ink flying across my paper, relived at last the moment at which I entered poor Valeria's tower and heard it and all the rest speak to me, felt the proud burden of manhood dropped upon my shoulders, and knew I was a youth no more. That was ten years past, I thought. Ten years had gone by when I wrote of it in the House Absolute. Now the time is perhaps a century or more. Who can say?  \nI had brought aboard a narrow coVer of lead with a close-fitting lid. My manuscript filled it, as I knew it would. I closed the lid and locked it, adjusted my pistol to its lowest setting, and fused lid and coVer into a single mass with the beam.  \nTo go on deck, one passes through strange gangways, often filled by an echoing voice that, though it cannot be distinctly heard, can always be understood. When one reaches a hatch, one must put on a cloak of air, an invisible atmosphere of one's  \nI. THE MAINMAST 2  \nown held by what appears to be no more than a shining necklace of linked cylinders. There is a hood of air for the head, gloves of air for the hands (these grow thin, however, when one grasps something, and the cold","cbCaisvNn0PKqPSh","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaisvNn0PKqPSh","pdf",946454,273,"English","# Contents\n## I The Mainmast\n## II The Fifth Sailor\n## III The Citizens of the Sails\n## IV The Hero and the Hierodules\n## V A Death and the Dark\n## VI A Death in the Light\n## VII The Empty Sleeve\n## VIII The Empty Air\n## IX Interlude\n## X Skirmish\n## XI The Semblance\n## XII The Battles\n## XIII The End of the Universe\n## XIV Yesod\n## XV The Epitome\n## XVI The Isle\n## XVII The Examination\n## XVIII Silence\n## XIX The Coiled Room\n## XX Tzadkiel\n## XXI Descent\n## XXII The Ship\n## XXIII The Captain\n## XXIV Passion and the Passageway\n## XXV Gunnie and Burgundofara\n## XXVI The Return to Urth\n## XXVII The Village Beside the Stream\n## XXVIII Among the Villagers\n## XXIX Ceryx\n## XXX Zama\n## XXXI To the Alcyone\n## XXXII Aboard the Alcyone\n## XXXIII Saltus Again\n## XXXIV Nessus Again\n## XXXV The Citadel Again\n## XXXVI The Book of the New Sun\n## XXXVII The Claw of the Conciliator Again\n## XXXVIII The Brook Beyond Briah\n## XXXIX Severian from His Cenotaph\n## XL Ding, Dong, Ding!\n## XLI The Evening Tide\n## XLII The Morning Tide\n## XLIII The Runaway\n## XLIV The Sunken City\n## XLV Old Lands and New\n## XLVI Apu-Punchau\n## XLVII Darkness in the House of Day\n## XLVIII The Urth of the New Sun\n## Appendix—The Miracle of Apu-Punchau","[{\"question\":\"What is included at the start of the document besides the story text?\",\"answer\":\"It provides a detailed Contents section listing many numbered chapters, followed by the opening of Chapter I, “The Mainmast.”\"},{\"question\":\"Who is the narrator introduced in the excerpt and what key roles does he claim?\",\"answer\":\"The narrator is Severian. He states his names given by friends, soldiers, and foes, and describes himself as the last Autarch of the Commonwealth, ruling the world called Urth.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Severian describe the act of writing and its relation to time?\",\"answer\":\"He explains that he cast one manuscript into the seas of time and begins again, recounting how he previously recreated a book from memory while writing aboard the ship and later returned to the task.”\"}]","The URTH of the NEW SUN - Contents - I The Mainmast | PDF",1789966409,420]