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First edition. Hard cover, 8vo, in publisher's black cloth boards with paper label to spine. Dust jacket in red with illustration in black of Casanova's daring rooftop escape from the Doge's Palace in Venice. In English. COLLATION: [20], 175, [3] pp. CONDITION: Very Good Plus. Overall very clean, with little to no wear to covers. Foxing to fore-edge of text-block. Some pages unopened. Dust jacket has some small chips from the edges, and is now protected in mylar. ** Welsh AUTHOR and TRANSLATOR, Arthur Machen [born Arthur Llewellen Jones] (1863-1947), perhaps now better remembered for his fantasy works, "The Great God Pan" (1894) and "The Hill of Dreams" (1907), started his career as a translator. Relocating to London from rural Caerleon, Wales around 1882, he took as one of his first assignments the translation from the French of the great lover's lengthy autobiography, "Mémoires de J. Casanova de Seingalt," published in 12 vol. between 1826 and 1838. ** Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) trained for the priesthood, but who has a hard time staying out of trouble, and ended up traveling all over Italy (Padua, Rome, and finally, Venice) looking for work as an assistant to various clergy. It was only when he was traveling in a gondola with Senator Matteo Bragadin that he found a sponsor; the story was that Bragadin had a stroke on the journey home, and Casanova helped him into his house and called for the doctor. The doctor prescribed a poultice containing mercury, which unsurprisingly made the Senator much worse. In his ignorance of medical practices of the day, Casanova ordered the dressing removed, and the Senator washed of its ointments. After some rest, the Senator recovered, and promptly installed Casanova as a member of his household. ** Casanova seemed to find trouble constantly; there was an ill-advised prank with a dead hand purloined from a grave-robbing, for instance. The civic tribunal of Venice marshaled the evidence against him and, on the 26th July 1755, he was arrested and sentenced, without trial, to five years imprisonment. He was kept in Doge's Palace in the cells known as "The Leads", as it was on the top floor just under the lead-tiled roof. He found an iron bar and a stone during his exercise in the prison yard, and over time created an iron spike with which he planned to chisel his way through the floor under his bed and make his escape. His plan was foiled, however, when his cell was switched for another room. Still, escape he finally did; first through a ceiling and then off the roof on a sheet rope, using his famous powers of persuasion to make the final vault past the guards to freedom. ** Casanova published the story of his escape from "The Leads" in 1788, as "Histoire de ma fuite des prisons de la République de Venise qu'on appelle les Plombs". ** REF: Goldstone & Sweetser (1973) 59a, p. 72. Codice articolo 9282
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Titolo: Casanova's Escape from the Leads. Being his ...
Casa editrice: Casanova Society, London
Data di pubblicazione: 1925
Legatura: Hard Cover
Condizione: Very Good Plus
Condizione sovraccoperta: Very Good
Edizione: Ordinary Edition.
