Everyman’s Library has just released an abridged version of the memoirs of Giacomo de Seingalt, that manwhore-turned-librarian better know as Casanova. Casanova began writing his memoirs late in his life, after he had accepted a position as librarian for a Bohemian Count. Critic Edmund Wilson called The History of My Life the most interesting memoir ever written.
Raised mostly by his maternal grandmother, he got his first lessons in sex at age 11 from the teenage sister of his tutor, Dr. Gozzi. He studied law at the University of Padua and at 15 seriously contemplated a career in the clergy. He gave that up after forgetting the words to his sermon and fainting in the pulpit, the result of too much wine at lunch and cocky overconfidence in his powers of memory.
Abridged
The unabridged edition is 4000 pages. The edition mentioned in this article is 1500 pages and the Penguin edition is 500 pages. You can check ABE and find that the John Hopkins Press published a 12 volume set and Harcourt, Brace in 1966 published a two volume set in a slipcase.
Re:Abridged
Yikes. I’ll stick with the BBC movie starring David Tennant and Peter O’Toole.
🙂