The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 01: Childhood

An autobiographical narrative of the author's early life that reconstructs family origins and the circumstances of his upbringing within a theatrical Venetian household. It blends genealogical anecdotes and domestic detail with immediate childhood memory—formative incidents, early illnesses, a grandmother's care, and small voyages beyond the city—that reveal social pressures, financial precarity, and the cultivation of curiosity and resourcefulness. Episodic and vivid, the account establishes personal habits, influences, and themes—mobility, self-reliance, and sensual engagement with the world—that inform the later adventures recounted in subsequent volumes.