"All that a life of this kind can contain Casanova put into
his story. And how much of the world! -- the eighteenth century as
you get it in no other book; society from top to bottom; Europe
from England to Russia, a more brilliant variety of characters than
you can find in any eighteenth-century novel." -- Edmund
Wilson Volumes 9 and 10 contain descriptions of Casanova's
first visits to England, Prussia, Russia, and Poland. In all these
countries he gained access to the Courts. Frederick the Great of
Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia join the roster of
potentates entertained and charmed by the adventurer. Though
beginning to age, and ruing it, Casanova still manages to exert a
powerful attraction on women.
Trask has written a version in an English fully contemporary yet remarkably Italian in sensibility. With admirable restraint and refinement, he has conveyed the zest and sensuous delight of the original. National Book Award Citation These memoirs are compulsive reading... they are the work not only of a highly accomplished seducer but of a literary artist of the highest talents. -- J. H. Plumb New York Times Book Review Casanovists consider Trask's version the definitive English translation. Quest 2006 Trask expertly rendered this text into English in 1966, and his is the English version to read... Compulsively readable... Certainly, few books better convey the sheer, exuberant joy of being alive and young than these reminiscences. -- Michael Dirda New York Review of Books 2007
Giacomo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725. His parents, both actors, wanted him to become a priest, but their hopes were dashed when, at sixteen, he was expelled from seminary for immoral misconduct. Probably best-known for his reputation as a womanizer, Casanova was in turn a secretary, a soldier in the Venetian army, a preacher, an alchemist, a gambler, a violinist, a lottery director, and a spy. He translated Homer's Iliad into Italian and collaborated with Da Ponte on the libretto for Mozart's Don Giovanni. He retired in 1785 to the castle of a friend-Count Waldstein of Bohemia-in order to write his memoirs.
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