Casanova
On sale
8th May 2006
Price: £8.99
***Out now: Andrew Miller’s new novel THE LAND IN WINTER***
‘ANDREW MILLER’S WRITING IS A SOURCE OF WONDER AND DELIGHT’ Hilary Mantel
‘ONE OF OUR MOST SKILFUL CHRONICLERS OF THE HUMAN HEART AND MIND’ Sunday Times
‘Sparkling’
The Times
‘Exquisite’
Daily Telegraph
‘Beautiful’
Observer
The second novel from the critically acclaimed author of Pure – a portrait of the legendary Casanova at a turning point in his life and loves
In 1763, the famed Venetian seducer Giacomo Casanova arrives in England intent on a respite from his restless travels and liaisons, but cannot long resist the lure of company or a pretty face. This time, though, it is he who falls in love, and with an elusive quarry.
Here is Casanova in unfamiliar guise: thwarted, driven by his emotions and, in middle-age, forced to reassess his whole life.
PRAISE FOR ANDREW MILLER
‘Unique, visionary, a master at unmasking humanity’
Sarah Hall
‘A writer of very rare and outstanding gifts’
Independent on Sunday
‘A highly intelligent writer, both exciting and contemplative’
The Times
‘A wonderful storyteller’
Spectator
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Reviews
His writing is vivid, precise and constantly surprising. I was absolutely captivated by it . . . I wish I'd written it
Sparkling and lavishly detailed . . . rich without being cloying; resonant of time and place while remaining fresh and modern . . . he captures brilliantly the downfall and partial redemption of this charming isolate
Full-bodied yet razor-sharp . . . Period detail, which so often reveals only that the writer has commendably and carefully studied a contemporary portrait, in Miller's hands takes us into the heart of 18th-century London so that we can almost smell and touch it . . . its fetid atmosphere almost making the reader itch
I was thoroughly amused, stimulated, entertained and instructed by the whole book . . . I don't think I've read anything which has brought 18th-century London so powerfully to life . . . brilliantly acute
Exquisite . . . Miller's elegant prose is laced with luxurious imagery and wry humour . . . beautifully and sensitively written
Miller is a pellucid, evocative writer: he brings alive the thick fogs over the Thames, the dreary winter countryside, the lamp-lit London streets . . . A beautiful evocation of a few months of this womaniser's life
Andrew Miller's forte is painting verbal landscapes, laying the words just so. At times it's like a fine miniature, delicate with atmosphere and smoke and gleam
Miller again shows his mastery of historical fiction in this fine, elegiac book
Miller's elegiac meditation on life, love and mortality is deep, poignant and funny
Glittering . . . There are descriptive passages of extraordinary power and beauty
Miller is knowing, ironic, and playful in his new novel . . . The prose is flawless
Immensely readable . . . a well-crafted page-turner which certainly delivers
Miller is astonishingly assured in handling the novel's lush complexities of time and place, of nationality, and of the intricate workings of Casanova's troubled mind . . . His achievement here is to make of the legendary Casanova not some brightly colored historical oddity but, more subtly, a man
Worth reading for its evocation of 18th-century London alone. Silken boudoirs, pestilent hovels and pleasure gardens are all brought to magical life
Miller's prose is jewelled . . . What Casanova wrote with a swagger resurfaces here as an elegant, elegiac meditation on the death of purpose
A perfectly crafted picture of 18-century London and its visiting predator in language as delicate as the tendrils of fog that curl off the Thames, and as forceful as the fetid odours conjured up in the background