Abbé Prévost
1697–1763
Biography
Antoine François Prévost, known to readers as the Abbé Prévost, was a French priest and novelist who lived from 1697 to 1763. He was born at Hesdin, in the Artois region, and was educated by Jesuits before joining the Benedictines of the Saint-Maur congregation. In 1728 he left the order without permission, after learning that his superiors wanted him arrested, and he spent long periods in exile in England and the Netherlands, where he wrote and published much of his work.
His most famous book is the seventh volume of a long series of memoirs, Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité, which appeared on its own in 1731 as Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut. It tells how a young nobleman falls hopelessly in love with a charming but unfaithful woman, and how that love drags him through ruin, disgrace and wandering. France forbade the book, yet copies circulated widely in secret, and it has been reprinted many times since. Later composers, among them Massenet and Puccini, turned the story into operas.
The site holds Manon Lescaut, and it is the book that explains why his name has lasted. He wrote a great many other novels and also edited periodicals in the 1730s, but his reputation rests mostly on this story of passion and ruin.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
Manon Lescaut
by abbé Prévost
The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut is a novel by Antoine François Prévost. It tells a tragic love story about a nobleman (known only as the Chevalier des Grieux) and a common woman (Manon Lescaut). Their decision to live together without marriage is the…
Summary from Wikipedia: Manon Lescaut (CC BY-SA 4.0)Manon Lescaut
by abbé Prévost
The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut is a novel by Antoine François Prévost. It tells a tragic love story about a nobleman (known only as the Chevalier des Grieux) and a common woman (Manon Lescaut). Their decision to live together without marriage is the…
Summary from Wikipedia: Manon Lescaut (CC BY-SA 4.0)