Memoirs of Casanova

According to Casanova, he wrote the first chapters of the book during his serious illness in 1789 .

In 1794, Casanova met with Prince Charles-Joseph de Lin . Friendship was established between them. The prince expressed a desire to read Casanova's memoirs, and the latter decided to edit the manuscript before sending it to de Lin. After reading the first three volumes of the manuscript, Charles-Joseph suggested showing the memoirs to the publisher in Dresden for subsequent publication in exchange for an annual fee. Casanova agreed to publish the manuscript, but chose a different path for this. In 1797, he asked Count Marcolini di Fano, Prime Minister of the Elector of Saxony , to help him with the publication, but he refused to associate his name with such a frivolous composition.

In May 1798, Casanova lived alone in Dux Castle . Anticipating the imminent death, he asked his family members living in Dresden to come and support him in the last days of his life. Carlo Anjolini, the husband of Casanova’s niece, immediately arrived in Dux. After Casanova’s death, he returned to Dresden with a manuscript, despite the fact that Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein , whose librarian was at the end of Casanova’s life , bought the right to all his creations from the latter in 1789 . In 1808, Carlo died, and the manuscript passed to his daughter Camille. During the Napoleonic Wars, the situation did not favor the publication of memoirs of a person belonging to a past era. After the Battle of the Peoples (1813), Marcolini remembered the manuscript and offered 2,500 thalers for her to the guardian of Camilla, but he considered the offer too insignificant and refused it.

A few years later, Camilla's family finances were upset, and she asked her brother Carlo to urgently sell the manuscript. In 1821, the latter was sold to the publisher F.A. Brockhaus for just 200 thalers. Brockhaus turned to to translate the book into German. Some excerpts from the translation of von Schütz and the first volume of memoirs were published as early as 1822. The collaboration between Brockhaus and Schütz ended in 1824, after the publication of the fifth volume. The remaining volumes were prepared by an unknown translator.

Due to the success of publishing in German, the French publisher Tournachon decided to release the book in France. He did not have access to the original manuscript, so the French text of his publication (1825-1828) was a translation from German. Tournashon's edition was heavily censored. In response to this publication, which violated copyright, Brockhaus released the second edition of Casanova's memoirs in French, which was edited by Jean Laforge (1782-1852) and turned out to be very inaccurate, because the editor veiled and incorrectly reflected the religious and political views of J. Casanova, and also subjected to "sweeping" the description of love scenes. Laforge divided ten volumes of the manuscript into twelve (of the same size), and then divided them into chapters with subtitles, naming the publication Memoirs. The French edition of Brockhaus came out from 1826 to 1838. In the following years, from 1838 to 1960, all publications of the memoirs took as a basis one of the abovementioned editions, with the exception of the illegal edition of Polen (1838), the first eight volumes of which are repeated in the text by Laforgue, and the last two offer a different, shorter version .

The original manuscript was kept in the safe of the publishing house in Leipzig until 1943, when it was miraculously pulled out of the basement of a burning building destroyed by the bombing of the Allies, and placed in the only surviving bank in Leipzig. In June 1945, the manuscript was transferred to the new office of the publisher in Wiesbaden on an American military truck ^[1] . In 1960, as a result of the collaboration between the Brockhaus publishing house and the French publishing house Plon, the first edition of the original manuscript was finally released.

The Pleiades collection at Gallimar Publishing House offers a new edition corresponding to the original manuscript, entitled Casanova, The Story of My Life in Three Volumes, published sequentially in 2013, 2014 and 2015. It retains the location, punctuation and Italianism of Casanova. Composed under the leadership of Gerard Lahuati and Maria Francoise Luna in collaboration with Furio Lucicenti and Helmut Wenceslas . The publication contains two introductions, one compiled by Gerard Lahuati , entitled The Magic Mirror, the other compiled by Maria Francoise Luna , entitled Other Casanova: from the masters, from the responses, from the voices. This publication is enriched with footnotes at the end of the page, which provide "interpretation" in words or passages that can create difficulties, options for translating into French in Latin quotes (or others), which are part of the text and Casanova's main remorse that bear evidence of his work as a writer and sometimes give the basis of his thoughts, as well as excellent instructions to the end. Jacques Casanova. Histoire de ma vie. - 2015 .-- ISBN 978-2070148424 . OCLC 913745036

Casanova’s memoirs have been translated into more than 20 languages ​​and have been published in more than 400 publications, mainly in French, German and English. Most modern translations are from the 1960 edition.

The manuscript was purchased on February 18, 2010 by the French National Library for an amount exceeding the equivalent of $ 9 million ^[2] . It is believed that the manuscript still contains unread and unpublished pages ^[3] .

As early as 1823, the magazine “ Son of the Fatherland ” (v. 86–87) printed in German translation “Paris in the middle of the 18th century (excerpt from Casanova’s notes)”. Then F. M. Dostoevsky in his journal “Time” published a large fragment of the notes “The Conclusion and the wonderful flight of Jacques Casanova from Venetian prisons (Seal)”.

A one-volume translation of memoirs was prepared by V.V. Chuyko (1887, 2nd ed. 1902), which reduced almost all love affairs. K. Vvedensky, on the contrary, in his free paraphrase entitled "100 Adventures" (1901), left only them.

In 1927, the first volume was published, translated by Soviet literary scholars B. I. and G. I. Yarkho, M. A. Petrovsky and S. V. Shervinsky , but the publication of the remaining volumes was prohibited by censorship.

Finally, in 1990, an abridged edition of memoirs was translated by I.K. Staf and A.F. Stroyev, equipped with commentaries, an index of names, and a chronology of the life of J. Casanova.

• Jacques Casanova de Seingalt Vénitien, Histoire de ma vie , Wiesbaden & Paris: FA Brockhaus & Librarie Plon, 12 vol. in 6, 1960-1962.   The first edition of the original text (4 lost chapters replaced by the editorial staff of Laforgue), comments taken from the publication Schütz.
• Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, Histoire de ma vie: Texte intégral du manuscrit original, suivi de textes inédits, Édition présentée et établie par Francis Lacassin , Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 3 vol., 1993, 2nd ed. 1999.   Reprint of the publication of Brockhaus-Plon. This publication has become a de facto reference.
• Jacques Casanova. Histoire de ma vie. - Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2015 .-- 4192 p. - ISBN 978-2070148424 . OCLC 913745036 New edition corresponding to the original manuscript.

Translations

To german language

• Aus den Memoiren des Venetianers Jacob Casanova de Seingalt [etc.] , Leipzig: FA Brockhaus, 12 vol., 1822-1828.   A censored translation of Wilhelm von Schütz from the original manuscript. Reprinted regularly since 1850.
• Geschichte meines Lebens , Berlin: Propyläen, 12 vol., 1964-1967.   Full translation from the original manuscript in the 1960 edition of Brockhaus Plon, translated by Heinz von Sauter. Reprinted in 1985.

Into English

• The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt , London: [Bartholomew Robson], 12 vol. (approx. 4000 pages), 1894. , < http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/c#a1075 >   Full translation of the text by Laforgue, translated by Arthur Macken . Reprinted regularly.

• History of My Life , New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 12 vol. in 6, 1966-1971.   Full translation from the original manuscript in the 1960 edition of Brockhaus Plon, translated by William R. Trask.

Into Russian

• Casanova J. The story of my life = Casanova J. Histoire de ma vie. - M .: Moscow Worker, 1990 .-- 734 p. - 200,000 copies. - ISBN 5-239-00590-7 . (Translation from French. I.K. Staf, A.F. Stroeva)
• Casanova J. The story of my life . - M .: Zakharov, 2009 .-- 560 + 560 s. - 2000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-8159-0895-6 . (Translation from French by I. Staf, A. Stroyev, E. Hramov, Yu. Solovyov - 2 books)

• Yarho G. I. Foreword // Casanova J. Memoirs. - M .: Book , 1991. - S. 5-21. - 302 s. - ISBN 5-212-00593-0 .

• The original manuscript can be seen on the website of the National Library of France
• Around the World Magazine, No. 1 (3), 2007. Casanova: The Story of a Myth
• The History of the Casanova Manuscript
• Memoirs in English at Gutenberg.org
• Memoirs in Russian on the website ModernLib.Ru
• Memoirs, reprint of the 1880 edition by Laforgue