At midnight on October 31, 1756, Giacomo Casanova—yes, that Casanova—escaped from a Venetian prison with help from a defrocked friar named Balbi. But instead of continuing to Munich, as his memoirs record, he stopped at an inn called The Stag in the Italian village of Bolzano. There he rested, secured a loan from a friend, and resumed his old life of seduction and debauchery.

Or so Sándor Márai’s account goes. Written within the framework of historical reality, this riveting novel chronicles a scoundrels downfall. Events past and present intertwine: the memory of a duel over a beautiful girl, a Duke who once spared Casanovas life, an intercepted love letter, an offer the notorious lover cant refuse. Richly realized, full of psychological tension, dazzling in its period detail, this novel joins Embers in re-establishing Mára as one of the world’s great literary voices.