<DIV><p><B>In Arthur Schnitzler's poignant novella, <I>Casanova's Return to Venice</I>, the famed gambler, adventurer and seducer Casanova has been reduced to melancholy, unhappily civilised by age.</B></p><p><I>"His yearning for Venice, the city of his birth, grew so intense that, like a wounded bird slowly circling downwards in its death flight, he began to move in ever-narrowing circles."</I> One of Schnitzler's most poignant evocations of the passing of time and the ironies of sentiment and love, <I>Casanova's Return to Venice</I> tells the story of an ageing Casanova's desperate desire to return to the city he truly loves after a life of exile; a desire which is contrasted with his still-libidinous and sensuous - yet weary - pursuit of women, money and prestige.</p><p>Arthur Schnitzler's <I>Casanova's Return to Venice</I> is translated from the German by Ilsa Barea, and published by Pushkin Press.</p></DIV>