Author: Giacomo Casanova
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781495284359
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
Europe's greatest adventurer. Thrown into an escape-proof prison for a crime he probably committed. The question is, which crime? In 1755, the infamous Giacomo Casanova was locked up without trial in Venice's notorious Leads prison. Over 15 months he battled disease, madness, boredom, grotesque gaolers, bad books and fellow prisoners, before attempting the most audacious and typically flamboyant escape in history. This is Casanova's own account of the escape bid that made him a celebrity across Europe, full of his unique wit and philosophy, translated into English in full for the first time.
Author: Laurence Bergreen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476716528
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 544
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Book Description
“Sexy, surprising, funny, insightful, and wildly entertaining” (Huffington Post)—the definitive biography of Giacomo Casanova, the impoverished boy who became the famous writer, notorious libertine, and self-invented genius in decadent eighteenth-century Europe. Today, “Casanova” is a synonym for “great lover,” yet the real story of this remarkable figure is little known. A figure straight out of a Henry Fielding novel, Giacomo Casanova was erotic, brilliant, impulsive, and desperate for recognition; a self-destructive genius. Over the course of his lifetime, he claimed to have seduced more than one hundred women, among them married women, young women in convents, girls just barely in their teens, women of high and low birth alike. Abandoned by his mother, an actress and courtesan, Casanova was raised by his illiterate grandmother, coming of age in a Venice filled with spies and political intrigue. He was intellectually curious and read forbidden books, for which he was jailed. He staged a dramatic escape from Venice’s notorious prison, I Piombi, the only person known to have done so. He then fled to France, ingratiated himself at the royal court, and invented the national lottery that still exists to this day. He crisscrossed Europe, landing for a while in St. Petersburg, where he was admitted to the court of Catherine the Great. He corresponded with Voltaire and met Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte—assisting them as they composed the timeless opera Don Giovanni. And he wrote what many consider the greatest memoir of the era, the twelve-volume Story of My Life. Laurence Bergreen’s Casanova recounts this astonishing life in rich, intimate detail, and at the same time, paints a dazzling portrait of eighteenth-century Europe, filled with a cast characters from serving girls to kings and courtiers, “great fun for any history lover” (Kirkus Reviews).
Author: Margaret Doody
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812239843
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
In this journey through the work of artists and the writings of travelers who have been both smitten and repelled by the influence of Venice, Margaret Doody explores ways in which this is a city profoundly unlike any other on earth—and one that simultaneously unsettles and reveals many of our most deeply rooted cultural values.
Author: David M. Guss
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 150982958X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
A genuinely new Second World War story, The 21 Escapes of Lt Alastair Cram by David M. Guss is a riveting account of the wartime exploits of the Scotsman. It is a tale of courage in the face of extraordinary odds and a testament to one man's dogged determination never to give up. ‘The greatest serial escaper of the Second World War’ – The Times 'Endlessly fascinating. Cram's story sizzles with adventure' – Giles Milton, Sunday Times In November 1941 Lt Alastair Cram was taken prisoner in North Africa as a devastating tank battle unfolded as Operation Crusader struggled to relieve Tobruk. His capture began a four year-long odyssey as he passed through twelve different POW camps, three Gestapo prisons and one asylum. Determined to regain his freedom, he became a serial escapee fleeing his captors no fewer than twenty-one times. The most dramatic of these attempts was from Gavi, the ‘Italian Colditz’. This maximum-security prison built inside a thousand year old stone fortress was for the pericolosi, those classified as the ‘most dangerous’ prisoners due to their unrelenting desire to escape. It was here that Alastair met David Stirling, the legendary founder of the SAS, and cooked up the plan for the ‘Cistern Tunnel’, one of the most audacious but little-known mass escape attempts of the entire war. ______________ 'Fascinating' – Daily Express 'An enthralling portrait of true courage' Sunday Express S Magazine
Author: Giacomo Casanova
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Escapes
Languages : en
Pages : 472
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Book Description
Author: Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Poets, Italian
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Author: Ian Kelly
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440642516
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 436
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Book Description
In Casanova, noted author Ian Kelly traces the life of Giacomo Casanova, a man whose very name is synonymous with sensuality, seduction and sexual prowess. But Casanova was more than just a great lover. A businessman, diplomat, spy, and philosopher, he authored more than twenty books, including a translation of The Iliad. Confidant to many infamous characters—including Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, and Catherine the Great—Casanova was undoubtedly charismatic. But how exactly did he seduce himself into infamy? In this richly drawn portrait, Casanova emerges as very much a product of eighteenth-century Venice. He reveled in its commedia del arte and Kelly posits that his successes as both a libertine and a libertarian grew from his careful study of its artifice and illusion. Food, travel, sex: Casanova’s great passions are timeless ones and Kelly brings to life in full flavor the grandeur of his exploits. He also articulates the fascinating personal philosophy that inspired Casanova’s quest to bed all manner of women. A riveting look at the life of the most legendary lover of all time, this is destined to become the definitive biography of Giacomo Casanova.
Author: Sandor Marai
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1400043735
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 190
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Book Description
Another rediscovered masterpiece from the Hungarian novelist whose Embers became an international bestseller—a sensuous, suspenseful, aphoristic novel about the world’s most notorious seducer and the encounter that changes him forever. In 1756 Giacomo Casanova escapes from a Venetian prison and resurfaces in the Italian village of Bolzano. Here he receives an unwelcome visitor: the aging but still fearsome Duke of Parma, who years before had defeated Casanova in a duel over a ravishing girl named Francesca and spared his life on condition that he never see her again. Now the duke has taken Francesca as his wife—and intercepted a love letter from her to his old rival. Rather than kill Casanova on the spot, he makes him a startling offer, one that is logical, perverse, and irresistible. Turning an historical episode into a dazzling fictional exploration of the clasp of desire and death, Casanova in Bolzano is further proof that Sándor Márai is one of the most distinctive voices of the twentieth century.
Author: Silvio PELLICO
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 106
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Book Description
Author: Giacomo Casanova
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Prisons
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
