Manon Lescaut

Manon Lescaut's ambiguous love story has a transcendent significance: Is it a cautionary tale, warning of the dangers to which passion, blindly followed, can lead? Or does it illustrate the redemptive power of love? After all, Des Grieux's perseverance in his devotion to Manon eventually brings about a profound change of heart in her and seems to make possible a lasting happiness based on deep mutual affection. The ambiguity persists to the end, when death snatches that happiness away. Author Biography: Abbe Prevost (1697-1763) had an eventful life, including time spent in an English prison for forgery. A soldier, priest and Protestant convert, he was also a journalist, pamphleteer, translator of Richardson's novels and, in his declining years, a hack writer. His prolific output of novels, biographies and histories has long since been forgotten, with the exception of Manon Lescaut, his masterpiece.