Book description
Giacomo Casanova arrives in England in the summer of 1763 at the age of
thirty-eight, seeking a respite from his restless travels and liaisons.
But the lure of company proves too hard to resist and the dazzlingly
pretty face of young Marie Charpillon even harder. Casanova's pursuit of
this elusive bewitcher drives him from exhilaration to despair and to
attempt to reinvent himself in the roles of labourer, writer and country
squire. Based on a little-known episode in Casanova's life, this is a
scintillating, poignant, often comic portrait of a far more complex
figure than legend suggests and of the decadent society in which he
operated. Andrew Miller was born in Bristol in 1960. He has lived in
Spain, Japan, Ireland and France, and currently lives in Somerset. His
first novel, INGENIOUS PAIN, was published by Sceptre in 1997 and won
the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, the International IMPAC
Dublin Literary Award and the Grinzane Cavour prize in Italy. He has
since written four novels: CASANOVA, OXYGEN, which was shortlisted for
the Whitbread Novel Award and the Booker Prize in 2001, THE OPTIMISTS,
and ONE MORNING LIKE A BIRD.
