Casanova, the Venetian who lived most of his life in exile from his beloved city and created his own myth-which in turn is a reflection of the nature of the city itself-is the subject of this masterly biographical essay by Stefan Zweig. As Zweig describes in this volume: "Imaginative writers rarely have a biography, and men who have biographies are only in exceptional circumstances able to write them ... Casanova is a splendid, almost unique exception."