History of My Life: Introduction by John Julius Norwich

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Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Feb 6, 2007 - Biography & Autobiography - 1512 pages

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.

History of My Life is by turns touching, thrilling, wonderfully comic, and quite irresistible. The present edition, which includes approximately one third of Casanova's enormous (and unfinished) book, contains all his major adventures and all his greatest affairs of the heart.

 

Contents

Introduction
ix
Select Bibliography
xxiii
Foreword
lxvii
Preface
15
CHAPTER I
27
My first love
35
Bettina believed mad Father Mancia The smallpox I leave Padua
52
with Senator Malipiero with Teresa Imer with the niece of my parish
68
CHAPTER I
191
return to Rimini and my arrival in Bologna
207
Naples and I go to Venice where I enter my countrys service I sail
223
lead a dissolute life Zawoiski Rinaldi LAbadie
249
CHAPTER I
267
young Frenchwoman I see Genoveffa again and present her with a fine
276
Volume Ten
957
who takes care of me The Marquis dArgens Cagliostro
1148

A ball at my house Giulietta humiliated My return to Pasiano
93
Signor Malipiero I no longer have a house
109
Bishop but do not find him Fortune provides me with the means
117
Don Lelio Caraffa I go to Rome in delightful company and there
129
The Marchesa G Barbara Dalacqua My bad luck and my departure
159
Textual Note
1173
Notes
1186
Index
1403
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

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. He lived in the Republic of Venice.

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