Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut

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Flammarion, 1995 - Fiction - 272 pages
Manon Lescaut by the Abbe Prevost was a controversial novel originally banned in France due to its scandalous content -- the passionate and unrepentant sensual relationship of a young nobleman and a beautiful courtesan.

The young chevalier des Grieux renounces his riches and his noble family to be with the incomparable Manon. Together they are swept into poverty, misfortunes, and ultimately, tragedy in the New World.

This love story has been immortalized in opera. And, as with other grand romances of history and literature, Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Iseult, the passion of these young fierce lovers captures the imagination and sympathies of the reader.

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About the author (1995)

Abbé Prévost, 1697 - 1763 Novelist Antoine François Prévost d'Exiles was born in Hesdin, and he was educated there at a Jesuit school. He was ordained a priest in the Benedictine Order in 1726 and abandoned the order two years later, living several years in England and Holland. Prévost is best known for "Memoires et Aventures d'un Homme de Qualite" (Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality, 7 vol., 1728-1731). The seventh volume is "Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut" (1731), which is popularly known as Manon Lescaut. The novel chronicles the tragic romance of a young aristocrat and a courtesan and was inspired by the operas Manon (1884), by Jules Massenet, and Manon Lescaut (1893), by Giacomo Puccini. His novels with English themes, as well as his translations of the British novelist Samuel Richardson, encouraged French interest in English literature. Those titles included "Pamela" (1742) and Clarissa" (1751).

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