The name of Casanova (1725-1798) is synonymous with seduction. But the Venetian adventurer’s life story is also one of the most reliable sources of how Europeans lived in the eighteenth century. In this first of his six-volume Memoirs, Casanova relates his childhood, first love affair, and his schooling in Padua. His subsequent short career in the church leads to prison and then travel. After saving a nobleman’s life, Casanova has the money to taste high society—eventually ruining his own fortune with scandals.
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Jacques Casanova (1725-1798) was a Venetian author and adventurer. World-famous as a seducer of women, Casanova also socialized with popes, royalty, and such great minds as Voltaire and Mozart. Educated in Padua, he lived in many other places, including Constantinople, Prague, Switzerland, France, Germany, England, Russia, Austria, Belgium, and Spain. Casanova finished his days in Bohemia as the librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein.
Arthur Machen (1863-1947), born Arthur Llewelyn Jones, was a Welsh author of Gothic-revival fantasy and horror stories which mixed fright with sex and decadence, and influenced other horror writers like H. P. Lovecraft. His “The Great God Pan” (1890) was deemed “Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language” by Stephen King.