Adventurer - The Life and Times of Giacomo Casanova

A fast-paced narrative about the world-famous libertine Giacomo Casanova, from celebrated biographer Leo Damrosch"Fully succeeds in communicating that 'vivid presentness,' that 'joyful eagerness' for life, which is what keeps us reading Casanova-and reading about him."-Gregory Dowling, Wall Street Journal"A nuanced, deftly contextualized biography of an adventurer, an opportunist, and a man of voracious appetites. . . . Another top-notch work from Damrosch."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)The life of the iconic libertine Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) has never been told in the depth it deserves. An alluring representative of the Enlightenment's shadowy underside, Casanova was an aspiring priest, an army officer, a fortune teller, a con man, a magus, a violinist, a mathematician, a Masonic master, an entrepreneur, a diplomat, a gambler, a spy-and the first to tell his own story. In his vivid autobiography Histoire de Ma Vie, he recorded at least a hundred and twenty love affairs, as well as dramatic sagas of duels, swindles, arrests, and escapes. He knew kings and an empress, Catherine the Great, and most of the famous writers of the time, including Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin.Drawing on seldom used materials, including the original French and Italian primary sources, and probing deeply into the psychology, self-conceptions, and self-deceptions of one of the world's most famous con men and seducers, Leo Damrosch offers a gripping, mature, and devastating account of an Enlightenment man, freed from the bounds of moral convictions.

Product details

• Authors: Leo Damrosch, Damrosch Leo
• Publisher: Yale University Press Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.05.2022
• EAN: 9780300248289
• ISBN: 978-0-300-24828-9
• No. of pages: 432
• Dimensions: 165 mm x 240 mm x 40 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, European History, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical, Biography: historical, political & military, HISTORY / World, HISTORY / Europe / Italy, Italy, General & world history, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, General and world history, Biography: historical, political and military, C 1700 To C 1800