Casanova in Love
Andrew Miller
A seductive, witty, psychologically acute rendering of the extraordinary man who seduced and conquered his way into history.
In this captivating novel, the famed Venetian seducer and adventurer, Giacomo Casanova, relives a turning point in his life. In 1763, at the age of thirty-eight, he arrives in Englad seeking a respite from his restless travels and liaisons, to revise his jaded palate, and to shake off the lugubrious moods that have begun to trouble him. Yet before long the lure of company proves too hard to resist, and the dazzlingly pretty face of the young Marie Charpillon even harder.
Casanova's pursuit of the elusive bewitcher drives him from exhilaration to despair and to flirt with the roles of laborer, writer and country squire as he attempts to reinvent himself. Here lies a far more complex, fascinating figure than legend suggests, a charismatic man who, for all his conquests, begins to doubt his worth and purpose. It is a scintillating, poignant, often comic portrait, conjuring up a decadent society in which youth and beauty formed a precarious finite currency. Following Andrew Miller's acclaimed and prize-winning debut, Casanova in Love confirms the presence of an outstanding new novelist.