Told from the perspective of his innumerable sexual conquests,
Casanova's Women renders a vivid flesh-and-blood portrait of the famed
philanderer, clearing away the myth while illuminating the lives of the
women who have too long languished in the shadows. 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 women and to 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's exuberant and candidly erotic biography
reveals how Giacomo Casanova, a 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, wills, correspondence, and memoirs,
this unique look at the legendary lady-killer gives voice to the many
women on whose naked backs Casanova's reputation was built.
