When the games turn serious, the gloves come off and the masks go on - stratagems and rituals, perversities that civilizations have created from the beginning of time. The expert seducer casts his or her conquering spell. Writer Gilbert Reid explores the art of seduction.

In theory, a bibliography about seduction - the art of making people fall in love with you - could include a great deal of the world's literature. Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Moliere and Balzac and Stendhal and Flaubert, and Mishima and Goethe, and certainly Sigmund Freud, to mention only a few, studied the psychology of love, of infatuation, of obsession, and therefore of seduction. Shakespeare's romantic comedies are largely about the tactics of the sex war - and therefore about seduction - and this is true of movie romantic and "screwball" comedies of the 1930s and 1940s in particular.

Below are a few books dealing with various aspects of the psychology and techniques of seduction.

Baudrillard, Jean. "Seduction". Translation, Biran Singer, New York: St Martin's Press, 1990. A fashionable French theorist argues that the seduced really has much more power than the putative seducer.

Carnege, Dale. "How to Win Friends and Influence People". This is a book from the 1930s that taught generations of Americans how to "charm" or "seduce" their clients and friends. This is ostensibly asexual seduction.

Castiglione, Baldassare. "The Book of the Courtier", Penguin Books. This is the classical book of Italian Renaissance manners, and thus shows how to charm and seduce one's colleagues, men and women.

Casanova, Jacques. "The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova", in eight volumes, translated by Arthur Machen. In these volumes, originally written in French, the great Italian seducer of the 18th Century recounts the story of his conquests De Laclos, Choderlos Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Dangerous Liaisons. There are many French 18th "libertine" novels about seduction; this is the undisputed classic of the genre.

Greene, Robert. The Art of Seduction, Viking Books, published by Penguin Canada. Greene provides, much good advice, an in-depth analysis of the art of Seduction - the greatest form of power - and gives many historical examples. He provides a good bibliography.

Greene, Robert. "The 46 Laws of Power", Viking Books, published by Penguin Canada. Greene argues that seduction is a form of power, so the techniques of power and those of seduction overlap. Here, too, he refers to historical and literary examples.

Izzo, Kim (and Ceri Marsh). "The Fabulous Girl's Guide to Decorum". The two authors provide an up-date to etiquette for a world full of young urban women on the prowl.

Murasaki, Shikibu. "The Tale of the Genji", translated by Edward G. Seidensticker. This is a great classic novel of seductive and erotic behavior in a courtly, highly theatrical society - 11th Century Japan.

Paglia, Camille. "Sexual Personae". In this big book Camille Paglia traces the pagan, sensual, and sexual energies that underlie the Western Tradition, and, incidentally, provides many insights into the powers of seduction.

Phillips, Adam. "On Flirtation". A British psychoanalysis argues that flirtation - close cousin of seduction - is a way of keeping the doors of possibility, and the pleasures of ambiguity, open in our lives.

Proust, Marcel. "In Search of Time Past".
In his obsessive, neurotic way, Marcel Proust provides deep insights into seduction, flirtation, love, and jealousy.

Stendhal. "Love", translated by Gilbert and Suzanne Sale. London: Penguin Books. Stendhal allowed himself to be seduced by women, landscapes, buildings, and situations. He is one of the great analysts of the mechanisms of the heart.

Sterne, Lawrence. "Sentimental Journey". Penguin books. This is a very funny novel by a very seductive character. It has the vividly theatrical sense of self and of others that is central to so many great seducers.

In French, there is a large literature on seduction. A few classic 18th Century libertine novels, dealing largely with seduction, are contained in "Romans Libertins du XVIIIè Siècle", edited by Raymond Trousson, and published in the Bouquins Collection by Robert Laffont.

Gilbert Reid was born in Toronto, and raised on a farm outside Kleinburg, Ontario. He moved to Europe and over the span of thirty years lived in France, England and Italy, taught university in Sicily, worked in public relations and film in Italy and was for 11 years director of the Canadian Cultural Centre there. Since returning to Canada, he has written documentaries for radio and television.

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