The Story of My Life, Volume 2 cover art

The Story of My Life, Volume 2

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Story of My Life, Volume 2

By: Giacomo Casanova
Narrated by: Peter Wickham
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £30.99

Buy Now for £30.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

The Story of My Life is the explosive and exhilarating autobiography by the infamous libertine Giacomo Casanova. Intense and scandalous, Casanova’s extraordinary adventures take the listener on an incredible voyage across 18th-century Europe - from France to Russia, Poland to Spain and Turkey to Germany, with Venice at their heart. He falls madly in love, has wild flings and delirious orgies, and encounters some of the most brilliant figures of his time, including Catherine the Great, Louis XV, and Benjamin Franklin. He holds a verbal duel with Voltaire, a pistol duel with a Polish noble, and finds himself hauled before the court multiple times, including in London, where the judge in question turns out to be none other than Henry Fielding. His appetite for life is voracious; for him, a life lived close to the precipice is the only life worth living.

The book is divided into six sections. Volume 2 contains the third and fourth sections: "3: The Eternal Quest" and "4: Adventures in the South."

Translation by Arthur Machen

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2018 Naxos AudioBooks (P)2018 Naxos AudioBooks
Classics World Heartfelt
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Story of My Life, Volume 1 cover art
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1 cover art
Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady, Volume 1 cover art
Rural Rides cover art
The Proud Tower cover art
Arabian Sands cover art
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding cover art
The Reveries of the Solitary Walker cover art
Philosophical Investigations cover art
Leviathan cover art
The Prelude cover art
The Man Without Qualities cover art
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage cover art
Conjectures and Refutations cover art
Metternich cover art
The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Volume I: 1660 - 1663 cover art

What listeners say about The Story of My Life, Volume 2

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A story like no other

Volume 2 covers Casanova’s thirties between 1756 and 1762, his middle years of wanderlust including travelling to Potsdam by sleigh wrapped in furs; crossing the Alps and shady espionage missions for the French government the proceeds of which gave him (for a while) a country house with two fine carriages. Entrée into Europe’s salons gave him a gilded life of meetings with great figures such as Voltaire, and glittering galas(he loved music and dancing), carnivals and feasts.
Still he lived dangerously – escaping from incarceration for a debt by a rope; fleeing the country following a near-fatal duel; leaving an over-dosed chaperone certain to die… In addition his ‘barque of virtue often ran on the rocks’ as his many and various ‘priestesses of pleasure’ captured his heart. One of the most shattering episodes was in 1757. Casanova watched, a Mademoiselle on his knee, the barbaric 4-hour torture and tearing apart of Damiens punished for his attempted assassination of Louis XV.

Always fascinated by the arcane and the esoteric, he maintained a long association with the massively wealthy Marchioness d’Urfé who nurtured outlandish kabbalistic beliefs (growing golden apples watered with urine was one of the most sane). Casanova fully exploited her eccentricities for financial gain. Perhaps at his most outrageous, he helped a woman desperate to be rid of the ‘plumpness’ left by a former lover by delivering saffron unguent five times a day to the needful site. (The baby was in fact unaffected)

‘Love that is not returned is no love at all,’ Casanova wrote. He professed to love all the women with whom he had more than a passing coupling. If his pressure on a lady’s hand was not returned, he never attempted to go further: both parties knew the rules of the game.

But there were dark times: his venereal tumours were lanced and his trusted servant disappeared with all his money and jewels; he was forced to flee after he’d run through with his sword a thief who’d stolen his ring.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful