The Story of My Life, Volume 3
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The Story of My Life, Volume 3
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Narrated by:
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Peter Wickham
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By:
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Giacomo Casanova
About this listen
The Story of My Life is the explosive and exhilarating autobiography by the infamous libertine Giacomo Casanova. Intense and scandalous, Casanova's extraordinary adventures take the listener on an incredible voyage across 18th-century Europe - from France to Russia, Poland to Spain, and Turkey to Germany, with Venice at their heart. He falls madly in love, has wild flings, and delirious orgies, and encounters some of the most brilliant figures of his time, including Catherine the Great, Louis XV, and Benjamin Franklin. He holds a verbal duel with Voltaire, a pistol duel with a Polish noble, and finds himself hauled before the court multiple times, including in London, where the judge in question turns out to be none other than Henry Fielding. His appetite for life is voracious; for him, a life lived close to the precipice is the only life worth living.
The book is divided into six sections. This third volume contains the fifth and sixth sections: the fifth section, "In London and Moscow", and the sixth section, "Spanish Passions".
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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- Rachel Redford
- 20-10-18
A story like no other
This final Volume covers the years 1763 to 1774 when, with his prowess waning, Casanova brought The Story of my Life to an end at the age of 39.
His travels were even more adventurous for the times. In England (the country he thought had greater peculiarities than any other), he was introduced to George lll and quietly spoken Queen Charlotte in England, but the theatre (his great love) was incomprehensible to him, and ‘wench ordering’ proved disappointing even at the high cost of 6 guineas. Offering rooms to let because he was lonely, he refused 100 women applicants, but happily selected the gracious 22 year-old Portuguese Pauline.
In Russia he met Frederick and Catherine the Great, travelling between Moscow and St Petersburg (which, he was sure, would return to the swamp it had once been): 6 nights’ journey with 72 changes of horses. Catherine the Great was genial and witty but Casanova felt unusually redundant and travelled on to Poland. His promising chances there were scuppered when he seriously injured a nobleman in a duel, and escaped with his life in a peasant’s sleigh to the sanctuary of a monastery.
These later years were unpeaceful. Having been invited to stay with a noble Italian Count where he could write his Histories of Russia and Poland, he found that the Count ate like a tiger and beat his servants. Casanova was lucky to escape. (The Count died a madman some years later). Finally after 19 years as an exile from Venice, he was pardoned and was able to return to the place of his birth, but all was changed.
Theatrical throughout, these three volumes are a unique, richly detailed, insightful social commentary on the times and an immersion in the life and thoughts of a man bursting with energy, intelligence and daring. A brave recording venture, each volume can be listened to on its own, but for the total experience, listen to all 3. It took me many months of indelible listening!
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