-39% $15.73$15.73
FREE delivery Monday, May 20
Ships from: NSA LLC Sold by: NSA LLC
$7.87$7.87
FREE delivery May 20 - 24
Ships from: ThriftBooks-Atlanta Sold by: ThriftBooks-Atlanta
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Casanova's Women: The Great Seducer and the Women He Loved Hardcover – October 31, 2006
Purchase options and add-ons
Told from the perspective of his innumerable sexual conquests, Casanova's Women renders a vivid flesh-and-blood portrait of the famed philanderer, clearing away the myth while illuminating the lives of the women who have too long languished in the shadows. The eighteenth-century Venetian adventurer Giacomo Casanova used his magnetic personality to talk his way into the beds of more than two hundred women. Charming, brilliant, and devastatingly attractive, he claimed to like women and to understand their emotional and sexual needs. To those he truly loved, he was the perfect lover―thoughtful, generous, and imaginative. To others he could be ruthless, selfish, and dishonest. Judith Summers's exuberant and candidly erotic biography reveals how Giacomo Casanova, a sickly son of Venetian actors, went on to transcend the rigid social boundaries of the eighteenth century to keep company with kings and beguile beautiful women. With original research culled from period diaries, wills, correspondence, and memoirs, this unique look at the legendary lady-killer gives voice to the many women on whose naked backs Casanova's reputation was built.
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBloomsbury USA
- Publication dateOctober 31, 2006
- Dimensions6.26 x 1.31 x 9.51 inches
- ISBN-101596911220
- ISBN-13978-1596911222
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Editorial Reviews
Review
About the Author
Judith Summers is the author of four novels and two non-fiction books. She has written widely on the 18th century and the history of London, where she lives with her son.
Product details
- Publisher : Bloomsbury USA; 1st US edition (October 31, 2006)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1596911220
- ISBN-13 : 978-1596911222
- Item Weight : 1.55 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.26 x 1.31 x 9.51 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,239,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #706 in Historical Italy Biographies
- #38,229 in Women's Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Despite the fact that this is a man whom no one should hold up as a example to aspire to, it was fascinating to read about the many fortuitous situations Casanova managed to eel himself into--and even more fascinating to discover how he extricated himself from those situations when they (inevitably) turned sour. He had skills at which even Houdini would've marveled. And even though he was not a good man--he could become petty, jealous, violent, and cruel on a whim--he had the admirable characteristic of actually listening to the women he wooed, bolstering their esteem and seeing their value as a person. Granted, this was merely to get underneath their petticoats, but he was the first to really treat his lovers as people, not objects.
This is definitely a book to be read in small bites, as it can become overwhelming with the amount of detail provided. For a man who has become more myth than reality, whose true exploits and character have become obscured by the mists of romanticizing authors and glamorizing moviemakers, Judith Summers has done a fantastic job of bringing the real Casanova to life, warts (and I do mean warts--full-blown toad warts) and all.
I think it should be noted that this is more of a speculative biography than strict historical recounting. The author inserts thoughts and actions which, had Casanova himself been there to witness them, he would've never put in his memoirs, nor would any other biographer, as they are merely narrative devices. However, personally, I don't mind this kind of speculation; it helps move the story along and keeps the book from being a dry-as-dust life history with as much readability as the latest set of tax laws. We can be sure that the people inhabiting Casanova's life were quite colorful, so it doesn't seem inappropriate for the author to ascribe certain behaviors to these personages in private moments which were never meant to be recorded for posterity.
Examples of Summers' disregard for history appear on pretty much every page, but here is a vivid one: on the way to marry a girl named Teresa, Casanova is arrested because he has lost his passport. Summers says he pretended to lose it in order to get arrested to get him out of the marriage. That is fine as speculation, but she states it as fact. Such distortions misrepresent the man and are arrogant and dishonest. Nowhere does Casanova say such a thing, and there is no other source - Summers cites none in her notes - and how would such a thing be known without Casanova's admission? and besides, his memoirs are full of admissions of the ruses, betrayals, and trickery Casanova proudly pulls off.
Page after page is full of this stuff. The nun MM writes a letter to Casanova, and in this book,the author writes: "MM puts down her pen and reads through what she has written. Then, with a burning feeling in her chest, she clutches at the heavy crucifix that hangs like a stone around her neck". This detailed scene is pure fiction. If you are going to write this way, I want to know more - like was the pen a Bic? What color ink? Where did she buy the crucifix, Wal-Mart?
This is bad writing, and worse - bad history.