Manon Lescaut
by Abbé Prévost 1697–1763
The book, and the century it came out of.
A seventeen-year-old chevalier meets a girl being sent to a convent against her will, and throws over his family, his studies and eventually his honour to keep her — repeatedly, each time worse. Prévost was a Benedictine who twice fled his order; the book was burned in Paris and read everywhere, and gave opera two of its warhorses. Its cruelty is that neither lover can be blamed and neither can stop. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by de Troy, Platzer and Watteau among them.
Why did he love her? Curious fool, be still!Is human love the fruit of human will?BYRON.
Manon Lescaut, by Abbé Prévost, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Love & Society
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 192 pages
- Reading time
- about 4 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785486870682
60 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
France, 1731 — and a deportation the author had watched
The transportation of prostitutes and petty criminals to Louisiana was real policy, and Paris could watch the convoys leave. Prévost, a Benedictine who had twice run away from his order, wrote the story as a small part of a much larger memoir, and it was that small part the censors banned and the public wanted.
It was published in the last years of the Regency, when the French court had spent a decade in open, expensive dissipation and the state was ruinously in debt after Louis XIV. A novel about a young man of good family destroying himself over an unfaithful girl, in a Paris where everything and everyone had a price, did not read as an exotic fable.
This book in culture: 16 versions
Most people meet a book like this one on a screen first. Here are 8 of them, the earliest and the most recent among them — and none of them is the book.
The whole afterlife of Manon Lescaut — screen, stage and beyond →
- 1914 Manon Lescaut Herbert Hall Winslow
- 1926 Manon Lescaut Arthur Robison
- 1940 Manon Lescaut Carmine Gallone
- 1955 The Lovers of Manon Lescaut Mario Costa
- 2013 Manon Lescaut Gabriel Aghion TV film
- — Manon Jules Massenet dramatico-musical work
- — Le portrait de Manon Jules Massenet dramatico-musical work
- — L'histoire de Manon Jules Massenet ballet
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
Manon Lescaut, first published 1731, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Love & Society shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785486870682, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of Manon Lescaut?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Abbé Prévost's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 192 pages, which is roughly about 4 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
