'Sunday Times Biography of the Year' 

Ian Kelly’s new biography of the legendary lover, traveller and memoirist was published by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK in June 2008 and subsequently in the USA. it includes chapters on Casanova as food-writer, and on Casanova’s interest in the Kaballah. 

'The best book yet written on the world's greatest lover'  
SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

'A sheer testament to the power of the written word' 
THE NEW YORK TIMES

'Enthralling' 
THE DAILY MAIL

'Sparkling' 
THE INDEPENDENT

'Magnificent' 
THE TIMES

‘Fresh and exhilarating’  
THE GUARDIAN

'Delectable biography'  New Statesman
NEW STATESMAN

‘Casanova dazzles once again, and so, too, does his biographer’
THE MAIL ON SUNDAY ★★★★★

'In author Ian Kelly, after two hundred years, Casanova has at last found his Boswell' 
THE TELEGRAPH

‘Enthralling...Casanova is stripped bare...awonderful read...pulsing with testosterone, energy and a determination to strip Casanova’s story of historical and cultural assumptions and return, via archival research all over Europe, to the man himself.’ 
THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

'The two most interesting things in the world are sex and the 18th century..as Ian Kelly's delectable biography makes clear...[it] makes you proud to be human.'
NEW STATESMAN

‘Captivating... in Kelly’s hands the story makes for a thrilling read’ 
THE SUNDAY TIMES

'Meticulously researched' 
THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

'Casanova would have been proud... Kelly does a marvellous and brilliantly unobtrusive job... like his previous Beau Brummell, Casanova is a treasure-trove of life...the effect is as though we had gone around the back after show. Here is Casanova himself, without the makeup and the trick lighting, talking through Kelly's subtle reticent voice (he commands instant respect as a stylist of some wit)..emerging, scaling the leads, opening the bedroom window, moving closer, smiling. It is Casanova. He's alive. He is alive.' 
NEW STATESMAN

'It is difficult to imagine a juicier or more engaging guide to life and love in the 18th century.' 
THE DAILY MAIL

‘He explores how Casanova revolutionised the way people view themselves as sexual and social creatures, and argues that he created ‘a modern sensibility of what it is to be a fully rounded man, alive to failures, fears and foibles, and very much attuned to a sexual motive force.’ 
THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

'enjoyable, illuminating, Kelly has written an adult book, or I should say one for grown-ups.' 
THE SPECTATOR

‘An unexpected pleasure is the book's focus on food.’ 
THE TELEGRAPH

'The great strength of Ian Kelly's new biography is that Kelly, himself an actor, is so attuned to the 18th century habit of mind which cast the world as a stage...and sets Casanova's wanderlust at the heart of the story, following his trail around Europe's archives to fill in the details, corroborate or correct Casanova's must mistrusted memoirs; it is impressive work.'
THE SPECTATOR

'Kelly has a fine way with libertines and dandies...he approaches his subject with a healthy appetite for food and sex and provides a fresh angle on Casanova as a gastronome.' 
THE INDEPENDENT

‘Lots of sex then, but lots of everything else, too... crowded with incident. Rather than the shallow seducer of popular imagining, Casanova’s appeal is as a man – flawed, humorous, engagingly self-deprecating – whose vast appetite for life still acts as a tonic on those who come to know him. Kelly conveys all this admirably, and his book makes an excellent introduction to a complex and surprisingly modern life.’ 
THE FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Kelly brilliantly communicates Venice’s cultural importance and fashionability during Casanova’s time.’ 
THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

‘Kelly halts the action and talks directly to the audience about Casanova and travel, sex and, most interestingly, food and it is entirely to Kelly's credit - specifically, his ability to re-imagine life on the hoof in 18th-century Europe as a series of exhilarating mini-dramas - that he has managed to make this story feel so fresh again.’ 
THE GUARDIAN

'Incredibly impressive in every way – and endlessly entertaining' 
CLIVE ANDERSON LOOSE ENDS, BBC RADIO 4