The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 06: Paris

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

Rating 3.9
Word count
349K words
Chapters
35

Tags

English Originals General Biography Social PanoramaUrban LifePersonal LegendRomantic TalesMemoirSelf-Reflection18th Century EuropeParisian SceneSocial ObservationSalon Society

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. Volume 06: ParisAuthor: Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798,Language: English, Class: D: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere, Release Date: Dec 10, 2004

Editor's review

This volume is the sixth of Casanova's memoirs, with its scenes centered on Paris, a text in which eighteenth-century European social history and personal narrative intersect. Its value lies not in sensational amorous anecdotes but in presenting, through a participant's perspective, the social networks, workings of money, social mobility, and ecology of public opinion in Paris under the Old Regime. The narrator is both adventurer and observer; the details are dense, the tone candid, and judgments on human nature and fate are often interspersed among events, making the reading both narrative and documentary. As a public-domain eBook, this volume serves as an entry point for understanding eighteenth-century French society and is also suitable for readers interested in memoir genre and the reliability of autobiographical narration. It should be read as a narrative with self-fashioning intent rather than as fully objective historical source material.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the opening note and table of contents first to clarify the volume's timeline and character relationships before entering the main text.
  2. Read alongside an eighteenth-century map of Paris and a basic chronology to lower the background barrier.
  3. Make character cards when encountering dense names, distinguishing real figures from the narrator's evaluative tendencies.
  4. Write a summary after every few chapters, noting how the narrator defends and shapes himself.

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35

FAQ

Can I read this volume directly without having read the previous ones? Yes, but be prepared. This volume continues characters and experiences from earlier text, so some names and events lack explanation. It is advisable to skim a summary of previous volumes or the background note at the start of this volume, list the main character relationships, and then enter the main text; reading resistance will be much lower.
How should I gauge the historical reliability of this book? Memoir writing carries clear self-fashioning and retrospective narration; details may be exaggerated, omitted, or misremembered. A safer approach is to treat descriptions of social atmosphere, sociability, and daily life as reference, remain cautious about specific events and character judgments, and compare with other sources when necessary.
Is the English difficult, and what level is it suitable for? The text is an English translation of an eighteenth-century memoir, with long sentences, dense names and places, and occasional period usage. It suits readers with university-level English reading ability who are willing to look things up. Using the eBook's search function is recommended; skip unfamiliar figures at first to maintain reading rhythm.
What should I note about the edition as a public-domain eBook? Such eBooks are mainly distributed free and usually lack modern scholarly introductions, notes, and textual criticism. Do not treat it as an annotated academic edition; for citation or in-depth research, find an annotated print or academic edition to verify wording and background.

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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.