Histoire de ma vie (The Story of My Life) is both the memoir and autobiography of Giacomo Casanova, a famous 18th-century Italian adventurer.

Although Casanova was Venetian (born 2 April 1725, in Venice, died 4 June 1798, in Dux, Bohemia, now Duchcov, Czech Republic), the book is written in French, which was the dominant language of the educated classes at the time.

On 18 February 2010, the National Library of France purchased the 3,700-page manuscript[1] of Histoire de ma vie for approximately €7 million (£5,750,000).

[3] The book comprises 12 volumes and approximately 3,500 pages (1.2 million words) covering Casanova's life from his birth to 1774.

After reading at least the first three tomes of the manuscript, Charles Joseph suggested that the memoir be shown to an editor in Dresden to publish in exchange for an annuity.

Carlo Angiolini, the husband of Casanova's niece, traveled without delay from Dresden to Dux.

Because of the Napoleonic Wars, the climate was not favorable for publishing the memoirs of a character belonging to a past age.

Due to the success of the German edition, the French editor Victor Tournachon decided to publish the book in France.

In 2010, thanks to the support of an anonymous donor, the manuscript was purchased by the Bibliothèque nationale de France for over $9 million, the institution's most expensive acquisition to date.

Its "original" title is: Aus den Memoiren des Venetianers Jacob Casanova de Seingalt, oder sein Leben, wie er es zu Dux in Böhmen niederschrieb.

The edition was prepared from 1825 to 1831, but difficulties with the censors slowed the publishing of the volumes, especially after the book had been put in the list of Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1834.

Several reeditions of the Busoni edition are: The manuscript remained hidden for many years because Brockhaus didn't want it to be pirated further.

The first complete and authentic edition of the text was published between 1960 and 1962 (minus the 4 lost chapters, replaced by their Laforgue version with the annotations by Schütz).

It is edited by Gérard Lahouati and Marie-Françoise Luna, with the collaboration of Furio Luccichenti and Helmut Watzlawick.

This edition is enriched with footnotes that provides the translation of words or passages that may cause difficulty, the French version of Latin (or other) quotations inserted in the text and Casanova's main repentances that bear witness to his work as a writer and sometimes reveal the depth of his thoughts as well as rich endnotes.