History of My Life (Everyman's Library) | 
 enlarge | Author: Giacomo Casanova
Creator: Willard R. Trask
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $21.35
You Save: $13.65 (39%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 118217
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Abridged
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.2 x 2.3
ISBN: 0307265579
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.253
EAN: 9780307265579
ASIN: 0307265579
Publication Date: February 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: R20080823231638H
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Amazon.com
This translation of Giacomo Casanova's epic memoir was first published in a multi-volume set more than 25 years ago, but this new paperback edition makes Casanova's story accessible to the general reader. Thankfully, the great Venetian adventurer's memoirs can finally be read as they were written, without the bowdlerizing that plagued them for two centuries. While Casanova is most notorious for his womanizing, his memoirs are also remarkable as they give a top-to-bottom view of European life in the 18th century. Johns Hopkins University Press has done a handsome job, packaging the entire story in six double volumes. And, in keeping with the spirit of the author, it's worth mentioning that a 17th-century painting of lounging nude woman spans across the spines of the set when they're arranged on the shelf.
Product Description
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
 Loads of Fun (but not for the whole family) May 29, 2008
The autobiography of Cassanova is a wonderful story, the Willard Trask translation brings the adventures of histories most famous ladies man to life in VERY explicit detail. Not for the faint of heart, but a great read
Be warned though: there are other translations that are just horrible, avoid the Penguin version at all costs. Also, it's worth knowing that the book is unbelievably long, the origional version had 10 volumes and the one for sale here only includes 1 and 2, the entire set put together is several thousand pages.
Still if you are going to read Cassanova, THIS is the version to get, if you want to finish the story you'll just have to buy 4 more books with the rest of his volumes.
Wow... Alll I Can Say Is Wow November 22, 2007
If you think you know Casanova from the movies or other books that you've read, you should do yourself a favor and pick up his memoir. To say that Casanova was a womanzier would be a grand understatement, but HISTORY OF MY LIFE also reveals him to be so much more. Part entertainer, part lover (okay, more than part), part con-artist, this books makes for some of the most exciting and unbelievable reading I've done in a very long time. I only wish I could have had the opportunity to meet this man - although, not as one his his conquests!
good reading June 27, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
My introduction to Casanova was in Paris of the sixties as a young Canadian student at the Sorbonne. At that time, Tante Ivette, the general's wife was imposing a rule of high morals in Paris. Not all books were always available, even on the Left Bank. However, one day while meandering through the Librairie Joseph Gibert on Boulevard St. Michel, I found there a Hachette Collection du Flambeau edition of a' Histoire de ma vie par Jacques Casanova'. Needless to say, I was in ecstasy, but knowing the rules, also a bit sheepish. I took it to checkout and put it in front of the salesclerk. He looked at the book then gave me a stare of wild amazement.I believed I was to be shipped out straight to French Guianna's Cayenne Islands. Monsieur, je ne peux pas vous permettre d'acheter. I interrupted with a quick snap in english " but I am Canadian". A brief 'bon' was all I heard and the book was mine. I highly recommend Casanova to every man. To read it is to have an education in the humanities of the highest order. There is no one like him to introduce the pre revolutionary 18th century to the reader. In our times, most will know him as the complete seducer of women. Almost right. He loved woman, as women loved him. Above all and in all, he was a true gentleman. Read him then and know his charm. Out of learning evil is not bred, nor virtue found in all who are unread.
 The Giacomo Casanova Autobiography May 12, 2007
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
The History of My life by G. Casanova is a massive undertaking. More than 1000 pages of small print on very thin paper. Difficult to hold, impossible to travel with, but some great excercise for those in need of arm work.
The romantic conquests are nonstop (he seems to specialize in sisters) and it is sometimes difficult to believe this isn't retrospective wishful thinking on the part of an older Mr Casanova.
The strength of the book is its wonderful look at 18th Century Italy, and other places, and its descriptions of both the well-appointed and Everyman. If you have some time on your hands, perhaps snow bound in a frozen cabin and needing either a jump-start on your sex life or a wish for a good look into a fanciful life that took place 300 years ago, this book is for you.
 Caution -- this volume is an abridged version February 14, 2007
25 out of 33 found this review helpful
The Everyman's Library edition of Casanova is abridged from the original, and the Amazon.com description does not note the fact.
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