GIACOMO CASANOVA (1725-1798) was an Italian ecclesiastic and author, chiefly remembered as the prince of Italian adventurers and as the man who made the name Casanova synonymous with "libertine" and "womanizer".  But Casanova was not just an energetic lover.  In his time he was a diplomat, businessman, traveler, prisoner, magician, confidence man, gambler, professional entertainer, and charlatan.  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.

His vivid autobiography, "Histoire de ma vie" [HISTORY OF MY LIFE, or MEMOIRS, 1826-38), established his reputation as an archetypal seducer of women and is regarded as an important source of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century.  Though the chronology is at times confusing and inaccurate, and many of the tales exaggerated, much of his narrative and many details are corroborated by contemporary writings.  The author, for the most part, is candid about his faults, intentions, and motivations, and shares his successes and failures with good humor.  He claimed to have seduced more than 120 women, among them married noblewomen, young women in convents, girls just barely in their teens, and even his own illegitimate daughter, with several veiled references to male lovers as well.  He describes his duels and conflicts with scoundrels and officials, his entrapments and his escapes, his schemes and plots, his anguish and his sighs of pleasure.

From 1838 to 1960, all the editions of the Memoirs were derived from the bowdlerized editions produced in German and French in the early nineteenth century.  (Arthur Machen used one of these inaccurate versions for his translation published in 1894 which remained the standard English edition for many years).  The first complete and authentic edition of the text, based on the original manuscripts, was only published in 1960-62.  The abridged translation by Willard Trask included here is the only one based on that definitive text.  It includes approximately one third of Casanova's enormous book and contains all his major adventures and greatest affairs of the heart.


The following books are in ePUB format unless otherwise noted:

* Duel, The (Melville House, 2011).  J. Marcus, trans.
* History of My Life (Everymans Library, 2007).  Abridged. W. Trask, trans. — PDF^
* Memoirs (Barnes & Noble, 2011).  6 vols.  A. Machen, trans.
* Memoirs (Start, 2014).  1-vol. edition.  A. Machen, trans.

PDF^ by Mohamed5438

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