Casanova's Women

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 and 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 reveals the real man behind the legend of Casanova, as seen through the eyes of those who knew him most intimately -- the women he seduced. Affair by affair, Casanova's Women renders a vivid flesh-and-blood portrait of the famed philanderer and the women who have too long languished in the shadows: Angela is a prissy virgin; Marina is a nun with a libido that far outstrips her religious conviction; Henriette is an aristocrat on the run from her family; and Teresa is the female impresario of an exclusive London nightclub and the mother of Casanova's daughter, Sophia, whose father attempts to seduce her. This exuberant and candidly erotic biography reveals how Giacomo Casnova, the 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, correspondence, and memoirs, Judith Summers's unique look at the legendary lady-killer gives voice to the many women who built Casnova's reputation. - Jacket flap.