Manon Lescaut

Manon Lescaut, sentimental novel by Antoine-François, Abbé Prévost d’Exiles, published in 1731 as the last installment of Prévost’s seven-volume opus Mémoires et aventures d’un homme de qualité qui s’est retiré du monde (1728–31; “Memories and Adventures of a Man of Quality Who Has Retired from the World”). The work concerns the downward progress of the chevalier des Grieux, a young seminary student of noble birth. An ambiguous mixture of disinterested passion and shabby criminality, it relates how des Grieux, a young scapegrace but also a man of the most exquisite sentiment, sacrifices himself to the amoral, delicate, and forever enigmatic courtesan Manon. In this tragic tale love conquers all, but it constantly needs vulgar money to sustain it. Prévost’s successful blending of traditional romance and sordid realism, together with his ambivalent characterization of the chevalier, made many consider the work a masterpiece.

The story was adapted for opera as Manon by Jules Massenet and as Manon Lescaut by Giacomo Puccini.