Review: Books: PAPERBACK OF THE WEEK: And so to bed... yet again: Casanova, Ian Kelly, Hodder Paperbacks pounds 8.99

Abstract

There's more to [Giacomo Casanova] than his reputation implies. He was a prolific author of fiction and philosophy, a connoisseur and cabbalist, a student of medicine and an accomplished musician. He was also, as [Ian Kelly] reminds us, one of the 18th century's most prodigious travellers. Each chapter of this immensely enjoyable biography is headed with a neat illustration of a carriage, as it might be, or a gondola, the changing forms of transport bearing witness to Casanova's wanderings across Europe and the level of luxury matching the rise and fall of his material fortunes. While those fortunes rose and fell, the number of conquests kept rising. But how much of his extraordinary story can a biographer really believe?