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The eighteenth-century Venetian adventurer Giacomo Casanova used his charisma to talk his way into the beds of more than two hundred women, and turned his name into a synonym for seduction. Charming, brilliant and devastatingly attractive, the compulsive womaniser claimed to like and understand his conquests. He could be the perfect lover when he wanted to - thoughtful, generous and imaginative - but he could also be ruthless, selfish, cruel and dishonest. Who were the women upon whom Casanova built his reputation as one of the greatest lovers who ever lived? From the two sisters with whom he had his first sexual experience to the libidinous Venetian nun who defied God in order to sleep with him, from the wealthy widow he tricked out of a fortune to the love of his life, the glamorous and daring Henriette, they all have their stories to tell. Judith Summers looks at history's most famous seducer from a female perspective, throwing fascinating new light on a dangerous and beguiling man.
Bericht
'Her knowledge of the area is put to superb use here as she describes its emergence as one of London's most elegant residential areas. More admirable still is the way in which she manages to chart the raffish careers of a mass of secondary characters, while never losing sight of the plucky, ruthless and beguiling woman who was hailed in the broadsheets, while she ruled London's nightlife as "Empress of the Vast Region of Taste, Elegance and Magnificence" ... Summers deserves a medal for restoring her to us in this captivating book' Miranda Seymour on The Empress of Pleasure
