The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete

Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.5

Word count: 6.7M words
Chapters: 669

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by CasanovaAuthor: Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798,Language: English, Class: D: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere, Release Date: Nov 11, 2004

Editor's review

This complete English translation of the Memoirs of Jacques Casanova is a primary source for understanding eighteenth-century European society. Casanova records what he saw and experienced from Venice to Paris, London, and beyond, covering court society, city life, travel adventures, and personal fortunes. Its value lies not merely in sensation but in presenting the manners and mentality of an era. The Project Gutenberg edition is easy to search and freely available, making it suitable as supplementary material for history courses or casual reading. The complete work is vast, and the narration has a strong personal perspective; readers should maintain a critical distance and treat the memoirs as a hybrid of historical source and literature. Reading the introduction or selected key chapters first is recommended before deciding whether to read the whole.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in the social and cultural history of eighteenth-century Europe
History students who need primary sources to support their studies
Literary readers who enjoy adventure narratives and personal memoirs

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer tight plots and fast-paced narrative
Readers with little tolerance for the subjectivity and period biases of memoirs
Serious researchers seeking systematic historical analysis

Reading tips

Read the introduction and table of contents first, and mark chapters about cities or events that interest you for priority reading.
Keep a map of Europe or a timeline at hand and track geographical and chronological references as you read.
Compare the author's account with contemporary sources and note where he exaggerates or remembers selectively.
If you feel fatigued, read volume by volume and write a few lines of summary after each to keep track of the thread.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Are these memoirs suitable as historical research material?

They can serve as supplementary primary material, but not as a sole basis. Casanova's account contains much personal judgment, hearsay, and literary shaping; it should be cross-checked against contemporary archives, periodicals, or other memoirs, especially for details about specific people and events.

How difficult is the English version?

This is a nineteenth- to early twentieth-century English translation, with long sentences and some vocabulary that differs from today's English. Readers at university English level can finish it with a dictionary; try one chapter first to assess the difficulty, then decide whether to read the whole or selected parts.

What is the difference between the complete edition and the volume editions?

The complete edition contains all the memoirs, is long, and has many threads; the volume editions make it easier to read by location or period. If time is limited, start with the chapters that interest you in a volume edition, then return to the complete edition for context.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798 Author

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) is known to the world for his autobiographical memoirs, The Story of My Life. This database holds forty of his works, most of them complete or partial editions of those memoirs, including volumes on his Venetian years and on his time in Paris and London, as well as one volume recounting his encounters with Voltaire. Written in the first person, these texts describe his travels across Europe, his social life and his romantic experiences in a candid, lively style rich in detail, and they are valued both as personal confession and as a record of eighteenth-century social customs. The memoirs have long been regarded as a distinctive work of autobiographical literature, offering readers a vivid picture of urban life and social culture in contemporary Europe. Because public information is limited, details of his biography cannot be firmly established; this entry therefore presents his writing solely on the basis of the works themselves, which are commonly classified as inspirational and personal-growth reading.