Manon Lescaut (L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut) is a short novel by French author Abbé Prévost. Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité (Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality). It was controversial in its time and was banned in France upon publication. Despite this, it became very popular and pirated editions were widely distributed. In a subsequent 1753 edition, the Abbé Prévost toned down some scandalous details and injected more moralizing disclaimers.
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Set in France and Louisiana in the early 18th century, the story follows the hero le Chevalier Des Grieux and his lover Manon Lescaut. Des Grieux comes from a noble and landed family, but forfeits his hereditary wealth and incurs the disappointment of his father by running away with Manon. In Paris, the young lovers enjoy a blissful cohabitation, while Des Grieux struggles to satisfy Manon's taste for luxury. He scrounges together money by borrowing from his unwaveringly loyal friend Tiberge and from cheating gamblers. On several occasions, Des Grieux's wealth evaporates (by theft, in a house fire, etc.), prompting Manon to leave him for a richer man because she cannot stand the thought of living in penury.
The two lovers finally settle down in New Orleans, where the virtual absence of class differences allows them to live in idyllic peace for a while. But when Des Grieux reveals their unmarried state to the Governor and asks to be wed with Manon, the Governor's nephew sets his sights on winning Manon's hand. In despair, Des Grieux challenges the Governor's nephew to a duel and knocks him unconscious. Thinking he had killed the man and fearing retribution, the couple flees New Orleans and venture into the wilderness of Louisiana, hoping to reach a neighbouring English settlement. Manon dies of exposure and exhaustion the following morning, and Des Grieux returns to France to become a cleric after burying his beloved.
The story has influenced a number of ballets and operas, such as:
In the novel The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, Manon Lescaut is an all-important model and point of comparison for Marguerite's life, loves and death and is extensively discussed. In the opening pages, the narrator encounters a copy of Manon Lescaut in the auction of Marguerite Gautier's estate, and buys it. The narrator reflects that while Marguerite died in a "sumptuous bed" and Manon died in the desert, in her lovers arms, Marguerite's death was nevertheless worse, for she died "in that desert of the heart, a more barren, a vaster, a more pitiless desert than that in which Manon had found her last resting-place." The narrator learns this copy of Manon Lescaut was a gift from Armand to Marguerite. Armand tells him that Marguerite read the story of Manon Lescaut "over and over again" making notes in the margins, and she "always declared that when a woman loves, she can not do as Manon did." (But, of course, she does because she must, hence the tragedy.) In Act I of Dumas's play The Lady of the Camellias, the characters attend a performance of the ballet Manon Lescaut.
In chapter 4 of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian leafs through a copy of Manon Lescaut while waiting for Lord Henry.
In Book II chapter 28 of Stendhal's novel Le Rouge et le Noir, Julien and the woman he pretends to court, Madame de Fervaques, watch the opera Manon Lescaut while Julien is really thinking about his other lovers, Madame de Rênal and Mathilde de la Mole.
Michael Fane, the hero of Compton Mackenzie's controversial novel Sinister Street, reads Manon Lescaut just before plunging into his own hopeless pursuit of a 'fallen woman'.
In Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus im Pelz (Venus in Furs), the masochistic hero Severin refers approvingly to the Chevalier's love for Manon even after she has left him for another man.
In the mystery novel Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey solves the case by reference to Manon Lescaut.
Manon Lescaut is mentioned in a novel written by an important Romanian writer, Mihail Drumes.
In the novel, entitled Invitatie la vals, referring to Carl Maria von Weber's "Invitation to the Dance" (later orchestrated by Berlioz), a comparison is made between the novel's main character and Manon Lescaut.
Czech poet Vítězslav Nezval wrote an adaptation of Manon Lescaut in form of verse drama. Nezval's version was written in year 1940 for theatre of Emil František Burian. In Czech literature it is traditionally considered as better than Prévost's original and as one of Nezval's masterpieces. Nezval's drama has seven acts, centre of each act is a ballade. Manon Lescaut is still widely read in Nezval's version, it was also adapted to film (1970, directed by Josef Henke, starring Jana Preissová as Manon, Petr Štěpánek as de Grieux). In similar way Nezval adapted The Three Musketeers.
The novel is mentioned at the very end of Michel Foucault's Life of infamous men.
Thomas Pynchon refers to Puccini's Des Grieux a number of times in his early short story "Under the Rose," found in his Slow Learner collection, as well as in V.
North Gladiola, a 1985 novel by James Wilcox, opens with a reference to Manon Lescaut, and mentions the character again later in the text.
The title of the novel is paraphrased in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake at 203.21 as "Nanon L'Escaut", which also refers to the 17th-century French courtesan Ninon de l'Enclos and to the Escaut River.
Manon is also referenced in the films Manon des Sources (1953 by Marcel Pagnol and 1986 by Claude Berri) and Jean de Florette (entitled Ugolin in 1953 by Marcel Pagnol and 1986 by Claude Berri). Pagnol's 1962-1964 novels were derived from his movie. Beyond the name of the heroine, her grandmother was referenced as having sung Manon.
The film Lady of the Tropics (1939), directed by Jack Conway, with Hedy Lamarr and Robert Taylor is said to be inspired by the novel.
Some films and TV series have been based on the novel.[1][2] The most prominent are:
Yoshimi Iwasaki's (岩崎良美) 1980 hit song Anata iro no Manon (あなた色のマノン) is about Manon Lescaut.
For the original 1731 version of the novel, Helen Waddell's (1931) is considered the best. For the 1753 revision, the best are by L. W. Tancock (Penguin, 1949—though he divides the 2-part novel into a number of chapters), Donald M. Frame (Signet, 1961—which notes differences between the 1731 and 1753 editions), Angela Scholar (Oxford, 2004, with extensive notes and commentary), and Andrew Brown (Hesperus, 2004, with a foreword by Germaine Greer).