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Manon Lescaut
Abbé Prévost · 1731 · Romance, Drama & Literary
A young man of good family, the Chevalier des Grieux, throws away name, fortune, and honour for love of the beautiful, fickle Manon Lescaut — and follows her through passion, betrayal, prison, and exile to the ends of the earth. Abbé Prévost's 1731 masterpiece of doomed desire, which inspired the operas of Puccini and Massenet, remains one of the great tragic love stories.
Inside this edition
Every LitLab edition is illustrated from the text itself — the world of the book mapped, its people drawn, its scenes staged. 19 plates are open to everyone in this book; here are 8 of them.
The Flight — the map of their story, from Amiens and Paris to New Orleans and the desert.
ParisThe great city of pleasure and ruin: the lovers' lodgings in the Rue V——, the theatres and gaming-houses, and the glittering high life that drains their fortune.
A Map of Connections — the lovers, their friends, their rivals, and their ruin.
The Characters — the lovers and those who bind their fate, in medallion.
The Characters — des Grieux, Manon, and the whole cast, at full length.
The Chevalier des Grieux — the young nobleman who loved too well.
The Meeting at Amiens — the coach, and the first glance.
The Abduction — des Grieux torn from Manon by his father's men.
This edition
- Title
- Manon Lescaut
- Author
- Abbé Prévost (1697–1763)
- First published
- 1731
- Illustrated plates
- 41 original artworks · 19 open to everyone
- Chapters
- 13 · about 62,558 words
- Reading time
- 4 h 10 min
- Language
- EN
- Formats
- Read online · EPUB and PDF download with a subscription
- Publisher
- LitLab — The Illustrated Classics
- On LitLab since
- August 2026
- Rights
- Text in the public domain. Illustrations and edition © LitLab.
- Source text
- Project Gutenberg #468
Neighbours in the library
Chosen by what they share with Manon Lescaut — the same genre.