The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, Volume 1 (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

The name of Casanova (1725-1798) is synonymous with seduction. But the Venetian adventurer’s life story is also one of the most reliable sources of how Europeans lived in the eighteenth century. In this first of his six-volume Memoirs, Casanova relates his childhood, first love affair, and his schooling in Padua. His subsequent short career in the church leads to prison and then travel. After saving a nobleman’s life, Casanova has the money to taste high society—eventually ruining his own fortune with scandals.