The Memoirs Of Casanova

“Sexy, surprising, funny, insightful, and wildly entertaining” (Huffington Post)—the definitive biography of Giacomo Casanova, the impoverished boy who became the famous writer, notorious libertine, and self-invented genius in decadent eighteenth-century Europe. Today, “Casanova” is a synonym for “great lover,” yet the real story of this remarkable figure is little known. A figure straight out of a Henry Fielding novel, Giacomo Casanova was erotic, brilliant, impulsive, and desperate for recognition; a self-destructive genius. Over the course of his lifetime, he claimed to have seduced more than one hundred women, among them married women, young women in convents, girls just barely in their teens, women of high and low birth alike. Abandoned by his mother, an actress and courtesan, Casanova was raised by his illiterate grandmother, coming of age in a Venice filled with spies and political intrigue. He was intellectually curious and read forbidden books, for which he was jailed. He staged a dramatic escape from Venice’s notorious prison, I Piombi, the only person known to have done so. He then fled to France, ingratiated himself at the royal court, and invented the national lottery that still exists to this day. He crisscrossed Europe, landing for a while in St. Petersburg, where he was admitted to the court of Catherine the Great. He corresponded with Voltaire and met Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte—assisting them as they composed the timeless opera Don Giovanni. And he wrote what many consider the greatest memoir of the era, the twelve-volume Story of My Life. Laurence Bergreen’s Casanova recounts this astonishing life in rich, intimate detail, and at the same time, paints a dazzling portrait of eighteenth-century Europe, filled with a cast characters from serving girls to kings and courtiers, “great fun for any history lover” (Kirkus Reviews).

Award-winning translation of the complete memoirs of Casanova available for the first time in paperback. In volumes 5 and 6, Casanova brings his flight from the Inquisitor's prison in Venice to a happy conclusion. Exiled from Venice, he goes to Munich and Paris, where he establishes himself as a cabalist, makes a fortune in Holland, helps start the French State Lottery, goes on to Switzerland where he meets Voltaire. Because every previous edition of Casanova's Memoirs had been abridged to suppress the author's political and religious views and tame his vivid, often racy, style, the literary world considered it a major event when Willard R. Trask's translation of the complete original text was published in six double volumes between 1966 and 1971. Trask's award-winning translation now appears in paperback for the first time.

The name of Giacomo Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt (1725-98), is now synonymous with amorous exploits, and there are plenty of these, vividly narrated, in his memoirs. But Casanova was not just an energetic lover. In his time he was a diplomat, businessman, trainee priest, traveler, prisoner, magician, confidence man, gambler, professional entertainer, and charlatan. He financed business projects, organized lotteries, wrote opera libretti, and dabbled in high politics. Above all he was an autobiographer of enduring brilliance and subtlety who left behind him what is probably the most remarkable confession ever written. Casanova explored to the full all the possibilities eighteenth-century Venice offered by way of love and profit before being imprisoned, escaping from jail, and fleeing from the city to begin travels that took him across Europe. In Moscow and London, Berlin and Constantinople, he met the famous men and women of his time—Catherine the Great, Voltaire, Louis XV, Rousseau—and recorded his encounters for the memoirs he wrote in retirement at the end of his life.

The Memoirs of Casanova Giacomo Casanova - With 'The Memoirs of Casanova,' William Pocock offers us a newly abridged translation of Giacomo Casanova's notorious 'Story of My Life.' Casanova dashed through an extremely controversial life in pursuit of love and fortune that is well worth reading. In his final years he wrote down his memoirs to make confession, reflect on his many adventures, and describe the vast array of people he met in brilliant detail. Perhaps too much detail, as his 1.25 million words, though very entertaining, are a bit more than most busy readers are willing to endure. This edition seamlessly distills his story from 3,875 into 1,188 pages, encompassing his entire life. Casanova's deep interest in romantic poetry, Greco-Roman myth, and Enlightenment ideals inspired his driving passions, with countless lovers and broken promises left behind. Casanova's great love affairs, the diverse variety of his seductions, are maintained here to offer the reader a representation of the whole. His memoirs are most engaging in his pursuit of romance, intense intrigues, and impassioned letters, fully explored in this essential version. The Chevalier de Seingalt was much more than the libertine playboy of popular imagination, as the following pages will reveal. If his memoirs are now considered a great masterpiece of French literature, it's largely due to its historical significance. Casanova's extensive travels and a lifetime of journalism enabled him to offer insightful portraits of the various humble and notable inhabitants of 18th century Europe. Through the magic of his words that distant world springs to life for us now and forever. In recent years, his memoirs have risen from the depths of moral outrage to the most exalted dignity within his beloved France. In 2011 his original manuscript, designated a 'national treasure' by the French government, was acquired by the National Library for $9.6 million, the institution's most expensive acquisition to date.

Rare edition with unique illustrations and elegant classic cream paper. According to Wikipedia: "Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt (1725-1798) was a Venteitian adveturers and author. His main book Histoire de ma vie (History of My Life), part autobiography and part memoir, is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. So famous a womanizer was the Italian-born libertine Giacomo Casanova that, a full two centuries after his death, his name remains synonymous with the art of seduction. But for the years he spent in the employ of Count Waldstein of Bohemia as a librarian, Casanova, "the world's greatest lover" at one time the company of European royalty, popes and cardinals, and man known to the likes of Voltaire, Goethe and Mozart would have been consigned to obscurity." Includes unique illustrations.

According to Wikipedia: "Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt (1725-1798) was a Venteitian adveturers and author. His main book Histoire de ma vie (History of My Life), part autobiography and part memoir, is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. So famous a womanizer was the Italian-born libertine Giacomo Casanova that, a full two centuries after his death, his name remains synonymous with the art of seduction. But for the years he spent in the employ of Count Waldstein of Bohemia as a librarian, Casanova, "the world's greatest lover" at one time the company of European royalty, popes and cardinals, and man known to the likes of Voltaire, Goethe and Mozart would have been consigned to obscurity." Includes unique illustrations.

According to Wikipedia: "Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt (1725-1798) was a Venteitian adveturers and author. His main book Histoire de ma vie (History of My Life), part autobiography and part memoir, is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. So famous a womanizer was the Italian-born libertine Giacomo Casanova that, a full two centuries after his death, his name remains synonymous with the art of seduction. But for the years he spent in the employ of Count Waldstein of Bohemia as a librarian, Casanova, "the world's greatest lover" at one time the company of European royalty, popes and cardinals, and man known to the likes of Voltaire, Goethe and Mozart would have been consigned to obscurity." Includes unique illustrations.