Casanova In Love

By John Elson

Exiled from his beloved Venice, Europe's legendary libertine has settled uneasily in London, doing what comes naturally. Which is to say feasting, matching wits with the likes of Samuel Johnson and, of course, wenching. Alas, the main target of his lust is Marie Charpillon, a smart little tart who is rather more skillful at keeping Giacomo Casanova out of her petticoats than he is at getting into them. The thrusts and ploys of this frustrated courtship are stylishly recounted by an English-born novelist, expanding upon an episode in his subject's vast memoir. Miller's limning of London in 1763 and 1764, with its acrid stenches and incessant rains, has the picturesque grunge of a Hogarth sketch.

--By John Elson