History of My Life, Vols. 7 & 8 [Paperback]

Giacomo Chevalier de Seingalt Casanova (Author), Willard R. Trask (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 1997

In volumes 7 and 8, Casanova is now close to forty. His various manipulations of the credulous rich have made him rich in turn. His travels take him to France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. In Rome he charms the Pope; in Naples, he nearly marries a young woman as licentious as he is himself, but she turns out to be his daughter.

Editorial Reviews

Review

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 )

Trask's exemplary translation... makes the real Casanova accessible in English... as strange, as diverse, as compelling as fiction.

(John Simon Book Week )

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 )

Casanova is unsurpassed as the recreator of the daily talking interests of 18th-century Europe. He ranges from slut to patrician, from closet to cabinet, waterfront to palace. He is superior to all other erotic writers because of his pleasure in news, in gossip, in the whole personality of his mistresses.

(V. S. Pritchett )

The Chevalier de Seingalt was a most remarkable man, who had some of the qualities of greatness... Has any novelist or poet ever rendered better than Casanova the passing glory of the personal life?—the gaiety, the spontaneity, the generosity of youth: the ups and downs of middle age when our character begins to get to us and we are forced to come to terms with it; the dreadful blanks of later years, when what is gone is gone. 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 )

Book Description

The complete memoirs of Casanova—available for the first time in paperback.

(2007)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1st edition (April 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801856655
• ISBN-13: 978-0801856655
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,097,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There is no better guide to 18th C. Europe, May 5, 2005

By 

Christoph B. Gondek "Host, www.theinvisibleha... (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: History of My Life, Vols. 7 & 8 (Paperback)

Things to know about "Histoire de Ma Vie"

1) It is long. 3600 pages in total and he only got up to age 49. He lived another 25 years, though his last years were not happy.
2) He holds nothing back. It is all there. No vulgarities, but if what he is saying is true, he did some things that, to 21st century eyes, are still pretty shocking (Donna Lucrezia).
3) It really does give you the length and breadth of the 18th century and you will try to find the painting of the execution of Louis XV's failed asassin to see if you can find the window Casanova and his friends were watching from (heh heh to all those who have read THAT part of the book)
4) Was he telling the truth? There are quite a few commentaries on Casanova. I think the best is by John Masters, because he is funny and includes a lot of pictures (Mrs. Cornelys, Mme d'Urfe, Comte de St. Germaine the prison tons of others, but alas, no Henriette) Also good is a slim book by the Austrian essayist Stefan Zweig. Most of the more recent commentaries didn't do much for me.

Getting through them all is a big commitment, but it is far more entertaining than you can imagine. Start today.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars and on and on..., October 17, 2011

By 

Gary W. Olson - See all my reviews

This review is from: History of My Life, Vols. 7 & 8 (Paperback)

Casanova's life was amazing, with enough adventure and intrigue to fill... well... volumes and volumes of text. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he decided to do, and while much of it is interesting and involving, after a while I just kept saying 'how much longer does this go on?' Certainly worth reading, but pace yourself or your head will go numb.