Pages from Casanova's memoir, showing his signature

A handwritten memoir by “the 18th century lothario, spy, writer and adventurer whose name has become an international synonym for lover”—Jacques Casanova—that “that shocked publishers two centuries ago,” and “was spirited away from the Nazis on a bicycle during World War II,” is about to go on public view for the first time.

According to an Associated Press wire story by Amy Dassie, the manuscriptwhich is written in French, even though Casanova was Italian-has been given to the French National Library by an anonymous donor, who bought the manuscript from descendants of the German publisher who had owned it since 1820. Dassie notes Casanova “wrote the 3,700 pages of memoirs between 1789 and 1798, the year of his death. He bequeathed them to his nephew. Titled ‘The Story of My Life,’ the memoirs depict the manners of the Age of Enlightenment as well as Casanova’s personal adventures, sexual and otherwise.”

It will go on display in Paris next year, “and a digital copy of the work will be available on the library’s nascent online book site, Gallica.”