The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut

👁 Title page: Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux, et de Manon Lescaut. Premiere Partie. (Decorative flourish.) A Amsterdam, Aux depens de la Compagnie. M. DCC. LIII. Title page of the standalone 1753 edition
Author	Antoine François Prévost
Original title	Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux, et de Manon Lescaut
Language	French
Genre	Récit
Publication date	1731
Publication place	Amsterdam, Netherlands
Original text	Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux, et de Manon Lescaut at French Wikisource
Translation	The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut at Wikisource

The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut ^{[note 1]} is a novel by Antoine François Prévost. It tells a tragic love story about a nobleman (known only as the Chevalier^{[note 2]} des Grieux) and a common woman (Manon Lescaut). Their decision to live together without marriage is the start of a moral decline that also leads to gambling, fraud, theft, murder, and Manon's death as a deportee in New Orleans.

The story was first published in 1731 as the final volume of Prévost's serial novel Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality.^{[note 3]} In 1733, all copies for sale in Paris were seized due to the volume's morally questionable content. This effective ban contributed to an increase in popularity, prompting unauthorized reprints. In 1753, Prévost published Manon Lescaut as a revised standalone book, which is now the most commonly reprinted version.

The novel was unusual for depicting Paris's "low life" and for discussing the lovers' money problems in numerical detail: both choices contribute to its realism and its aura of scandal. The story is narrated retroactively by des Grieux, an early example of the French genre of the confessional récit. Over the centuries, audiences have judged the character Manon differently. Eighteenth-century audiences saw her as an unworthy figure who inspired pity due to the sincerity of her love. Nineteenth-century responses saw her as a nearly mythological sex symbol, either a femme fatale who corrupts des Grieux or a hooker with a heart of gold. Today, scholars tend to see Manon as a victim of broader social forces, who is misrepresented by des Grieux's narration of her experience.

The novel is regarded as a classic, and in 1991 it was the most reprinted novel in French literature, with over 250 editions over the preceding 260 years.^[2] It has frequently been adapted into plays, ballets, films, and particularly operas. The most renowned adaptations are the operas Manon Lescaut by Daniel Auber (1856), Manon by Jules Massenet (1884), and Manon Lescaut by Giacomo Puccini (1893).^[3]

👁 Delicate and detailed engraving; des Grieux puts an arm around Manon, who holds a fan modestly. They are in the street. Behind them, servants struggle with a trunk of luggage in a carriage.

The seventeen-year-old Chevalier des Grieux, a seminary student and the younger son of a noble family, falls in love at first sight with Manon, a fifteen-year-old of common birth on her way to a convent. They immediately run away together, and spend their meagre savings living pleasurably in Paris. As they run low on funds, Manon has sex with a Monsieur de B——^{[note 4]} for money; des Grieux forgives her. M. de B—— alerts des Grieux's family to his location, and des Grieux is forcibly brought home and confined to his room. Eventually, he enters St. Sulpice seminary with his friend Tiberge and spends a year as a successful student.

Manon reappears, and des Grieux abandons his plans to become a priest. Using wealth that Manon stole from M. de B——, they move to Chaillot. Their house burns down, and des Grieux begins to cheat gamblers for money. Their servants rob them, and Manon agrees to become the mistress of a Monsieur G—— M——. After accepting substantial gifts, she leaves his house while he awaits her in his bedroom. He has Manon and des Grieux arrested. Des Grieux is sent to St. Lazare (a religious institution for genteel moral correction), and Manon to La Salpêtrière (a harsh prison for "fallen women"). Des Grieux breaks out of his confinement, accidentally killing a porter during his escape, then bribes guards to smuggle Manon out of hers.

👁 Painting of a Des Grieux and Manon on a rowboat, gazing nobly into the distance while they are rowed ashore with low-class fellow travellers

They return to Chaillot. Des Grieux borrows money from Tiberge. Manon rejects the advances of an Italian prince. They meet a young G—— M——, son of the G—— M—— whom they had earlier deceived, and decide to defraud him the same way. Manon receives his money and jewels; des Grieux hires thugs to detain him for a night; at his house, the couple eat his dinner and are about to sleep in his bed when his father arrives and has them arrested. They are imprisoned in the Petit Châtelet [fr]; des Grieux is freed by his father's influence, and Manon is deported to New Orleans as a correction girl.

Des Grieux accompanies Manon to America, pretending they are married. After some time living in idyllic peace, des Grieux asks the Governor, Étienne Perier, to officially wed him to Manon. The Governor instead decides to give Manon to his nephew, Synnelet. Des Grieux duels Synnelet and knocks him unconscious; thinking he has killed the man, the couple flee into the wilderness. Manon dies of exposure and des Grieux buries her, digging her grave with his broken sword. Heartbroken, he is taken back to France by Tiberge and returns to his aristocratic life.

👁 A man in clerical garb and a wig, looking to the left, with a curtain and a bookcase behind him.

Antoine François Prévost was a French priest and author. In the 1710s he moved multiple times between a career in the military and a novitiate in the Jesuit priesthood. He joined the Benedictines of St Maur after an unhappy love affair, which has sometimes contributed to speculation that Manon Lescaut has autobiographical inspirations. In 1728, while a monk in Paris, he published the first two volumes of his serial novel Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality, Who Withdrew from the World.^{[note 5][6]} He then left his abbey without permission, and his superiors gained a lettre de cachet for his arrest.^[7] He fled to England.^[8] While he was in exile, volumes three and four were published in Paris.^[9]

In 1730, he moved to the Netherlands and signed a contract with the Compagnie des Libraires d'Amsterdam for three more volumes of Memoirs and Adventures.^[10] Prévost likely composed Manon Lescaut in March and April 1731.^[11] At the time, he was in Amsterdam, and was writing quickly to satisfy his contract.^[11] The literary historian R. A. Francis argues that Manon Lescaut was added to his ongoing novel as "an afterthought, determined by commercial reasons."^[12] It was first published in May 1731, as volume seven of Memoirs and Adventures, alongside volumes five and six.^[13] Beginning in 1733, the Compagnie des Libraires d'Amsterdam also published volume seven on its own, as it proved more popular than the rest of the series.^[14]

In 1753, Prévost published a substantially revised edition of volume seven as a standalone publication.^[15] The standalone volume was titled The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and of Manon Lescaut,^{[note 6][16]} which was the subtitle of volume VII of Memoirs and Adventures.^[17] This edition claimed on its title page to be published in Amsterdam by the Compagnie des Libraires, but was actually published in Paris by François Didot.^[18] In this edition, Prévost used more euphemistic language for some of the more vulgar moments,^[18][19] added a new scene where Manon resists the seduction of an Italian prince,^[20] and rewrote the ending to replace religious religious references with a more secular morality.^[18][21] Manon Lescaut is the only novel for which Prévost published a revised edition.^[22] The 1753 version of the novel is usually the basis of modern editions.^[18] This edition also added nine illustrations, which made the book into more of a luxury object, and also made it more challenging to pirate.^[23]

The narrative of Manon Lescaut is set apart from the main events of Memoirs and Adventures with a preface and a preamble, both ostensibly written by the unnamed "man of quality" who is the protagonist of the main novel.^[24] The preface, titled "Note from the author" (French: Avis de l'Auteur), explains that the story was too large to include within the main narrative.^[25] It also says the story will be a morally-instructive example for readers, who will learn not to imitate des Grieux.^[26] In the preamble, the narrator witnesses a group of prostitutes being deported. Curious about a particularly beautiful one (Manon), he speaks with the lover travelling with her (des Grieux). Two years later, he encounters des Grieux again, and asks to hear the full story of his experience in America.^[27]

The story is thus narrated retroactively as a long speech, delivered by des Grieux nine months after Manon's death.^[28][29] As such, it is an early example of the French genre of the confessional récit.^[30] All events are recounted in the first person,^[29] and the primary verb tense is passé simple, a past-tense form that is only used in formal written French.^[31][32] The novel does not use quotation marks, even when des Grieux relates what other characters have said, which blurs the boundaries between characters' speech and free indirect speech.^[18] Des Grieux's telling frequently interrupts the narrative with apostrophes to absent figures and expressions of intense emotion.^[33] When he describes Manon, he often stutters or struggles to find words.^[33] Prévost was praised for this informal and expressive style, which invited sympathetic emotion: according to the literary historian Sylviane Albertan-Coppola, "[t]he words flow as the heart overflows; the flow of feelings goes hand in hand with the flow of writing".^{[note 7][34]}

Des Grieux is often considered a partly unreliable narrator,^[35] whose telling of the story is shaped by his retrospective self-justifications.^[29] The scholar R.A. Francis describes some of des Grieux's explanations as "so outrageous that it is hard to imagine them being taken seriously", such as his claim that cheating at cards is morally acceptable because God has made his rich opponents gullible to allow the poor to rectify wealth inequality.^[36] According to the literary scholar Lionel Gossman, the layered frame narratives create a general ambiguity of meaning: the narrator tells us what des Grieux told him that Manon told him she thought, and no one is able to achieve certainty about the final "moral" of Manon's life.^[37]

Structurally, the novel follows a pattern of repetition and intensification, as similar plot elements recur with slight variations.^[38] For example, five different men who are wealthier or more powerful than des Grieux attempt to supplant him in his relationship with Manon.^[38] Each time, des Grieux's response is more active and less innocent.^[38]

👁 Painting of Des Grieux, looking defeated, kneeling in front of a badly-dug hole, next to Manon's corpse

The story is particularly remembered for its tragic lovers, with des Grieux and Manon being compared to Romeo and Juliet and Tristan and Iseult.^[39] The scholar Jean Sgard argues that all of Prévost's writing, including Manon Lescaut, is ultimately about "the impossibility of happiness, the pervasiveness of evil and the misfortune attaching to the passions", all of which lead to "mourning without end".^[40] According to R.A. Francis, Prévost is a fundamentally pessimistic writer, who "regarded the flaws of society as inevitable consequences of the flaws of human nature, with little hope of putting them right."^[41]

It is an early example of the emerging sentimental novel, in which love can justify anything, and important moral value is placed on strong emotion.^[42] Francis argues that eighteenth-century readers were particularly likely to be persuaded by the interpretation that des Grieux's intense love "reveals the greatness of his soul and thus cleanses him of the stains which deeds such as his might leave on a lesser man."^[43] Eighteenth-century readers also saw Manon and des Grieux as helpless, fated to their tragic ending.^[44] The crimes of both were equally justified by their love and their financial need.^[44]

On the novel's first publication, the characters and their choices were seen as shockingly immoral.^[45] Des Grieux's rejection of the priesthood in favour of a sexual relationship without marriage, and his crimes of fraud and murder, challenged readers' expectations of acceptable actions for the hero of a novel.^[46] Manon's willingness to have sex for money, and her general taste for pleasure and luxury, also seemed irreconcilable with her narrative role as a sympathetic love object.^[46] Both were sometimes seen as corrupted characters,^[46] and the novel's realistic depiction of Paris's "low life" was unusual and potentially threatening.^[47] The scandal was intensified by the historical setting of the novel: the story appears to be set between 1712 and 1717, so it takes place during the final years of Louis XIV's conservative and orderly reign and the start of the regency of King Louis XV, rather than fully during the 8 year long Regency, when stories of corruption would be less surprising.^[48][49]

👁 Engraving of a young man at a crossroads, with a tempting woman in one direction and a sage pointing to a crucifix in the other. Latin caption translates to: "what torments you endure in Charybdis, young man worthy of a nobler love!"

Although the preface claims to disavow the characters' misbehavior, this is often seen as an insincere pretense.^[50][51] The revised 1753 edition added an allegorical vignette on the first page which also attempted to frame the novel as a moral story.^[52] It depicts a Christian version of Hercules at the crossroads, a stock allegory for the choice between vice and virtue.^[52] The caption, "what torments you endure in Charybdis, young man worthy of a nobler love", aligns Manon with vice; the deadly mythological whirlpool Charybdis was a common metaphor for prostitutes who would "ruin" noble young men. The image thus suggests that the novel will be a story of temptation and suffering, but one in which piety will prevail.^[53] However, the effect of the novel on readers often fails to follow this moral rejection of Manon's temptations; according to the literary scholar Lionel Gossman, "[r]eaders have always wondered whether [the story] illustrates the glory of passion or its misery ... whether the model is des Griuex in love or des Grieux apparently grown wise and repentant," especially since des Grieux himself is often inconsistent.^[52] The literary historian Rori Bloom declares, "he promises moral instruction and delivers amorality."^[54] R. A. Francis states that there are "no agreed answers" to core questions about the interpretation of the novel: "Should the two lovers ... be treated with the indulgence that Des Grieux as narrator seeks to inspire for them, or are they merely criminals? Does Prévost seriously intend the work to be read as a moral tale, or is it merely a titillating entertainment?"^[55]

👁 Elegant and detailed illustration of Manon de Grieux gazing tearfully at each other in a shabby room

The novel is unusual in the French tradition for its detailed depiction of lower-class locations and activities, especially the criminal world.^[56] Manon is considered France's first fictional heroine to be a commoner,^[57] and the gulf in social rank between her and the noble des Grieux is an obstacle to their love.^[58] Des Grieux and Manon sometimes struggle to understand each other due to their different backgrounds.^[59] For example, Manon does not understand why des Grieux is surprised and upset after she acquires money from other lovers; she sees these as practical affairs, which do not threaten her love for des Grieux.^[59][60] Their difference in rank is also apparent in the different punishments they receive for their transgressions.^[61] When both lovers are imprisoned for some of their crimes, des Grieux's aristocratic status shields him from the worst consequences while Manon ends up deported.^[61] Des Grieux often finds that even complete strangers will help him, if they share his aristocratic background.^[62] The novel thus highlights how justice is enforced unequally for different ranks of society.^[61]

A distinct and even greater challenge is their lack of money.^[58] Manon Lescaut is often highlighted as the first French novel to treat money as a major theme.^[58][63] Exact numbers are provided throughout the novel, an unusual choice that contributes to the novel's realism.^[64][65] Manon begins the novel with a dowry of 300 livres, which is less than a tenth of an ordinary dowry for a woman entering a convent.^[66] Des Grieux has only the 150 livres in his pocket,^[66] and no way to earn more.^{[67][note 8]} As an aristocrat, he is barred from ordinary employment; he could earn a professional income in the church, the military, or the law, but only if he still had his father's support.^[67] The literary scholar Haydn Mason describes the novel's setting as "a harsh and sordid world, motivated almost universally by money".^[67] Although the book depicts its protagonists as suffering due to their poverty, it is not a populist novel that advocates for social reform.^[68] Instead, the novel responds to their struggles with sadness and resignation.^[68]

Manon Lescaut gained popularity gradually.^[69] When first published in 1731 as part of Memoirs and Adventures, des Grieux and Manon's story in Volume seven was not considered a separate work from the rest of the novel.^[69] Over the next few years, it was increasingly seen as a highlight of that novel.^[69] Reviewers praised the novel as a whole, especially for its success inducing tears.^[70] Memoirs and Adventures sold well in Holland and England on its first release, and a 1732 German translation was also successful, but it was largely ignored in France until 1733.^[71]

👁 Black and white etching of de Grieux on his knees, beginning to dig, broken sword on the ground, looking sadly at Manon's body

In July 1733, the release of standalone edition of Manon Lescaut prompted a review in the clandestine Journal de la Cour et de Paris, which brought it to the attention of many new readers, including the famous author Voltaire.^[71][72][73] On October 5, the French censors (who needed to approve all new publications) seized the copies currently for sale due to the book's morally questionable content.^{[71][note 9]} This effective ban led to a sudden increase in popularity.^[69] As part of this new popularity, Manon Lescaut was printed separately from Memoirs and Adventures several more times,^[74] including in unauthorized reprints.^[75] In 1753, Prévost responded with a high-quality revised edition of Manon Lescaut as a self-contained novel.^[76] Both Memoirs and Adventures and the standalone Manon Lescaut were reprinted frequently, with twenty editions of the first and eight of the latter appearing between 1731 and Prévost's death in 1763.^[76]

Interest in the novel waned at the start of the nineteenth century, followed by another dramatic increase in popularity in 1830,^[72] when it was adapted as a ballet.^[77] Many further adaptations followed, with new reprints of Manon Lescaut each year.^[77] In the late nineteenth century, editions were released with prefaces written by the famous French authors Alexandre Dumas fils in 1875, Anatole France in 1878,^[78] and Guy de Maupassant in 1885.^[79] Adaptations, especially into opera, had a major influence on the novel's legacy; according to the literary historian Alan J. Singerman, by the twentieth century the operatic version was more widely known than the novel.^{[80][note 10]} Over time, the novel came to be regarded as a historical classic.^[81] In 1991 it was the most reprinted novel in French literature, with over 250 editions over the preceding 260 years.^[81]

Since the novel's first publication, substantial critical analysis has focused on the interpretation of Manon's character.^[82] Because Manon's words and actions are always related through the filter of des Grieux's retrospective storytelling, readers can only speculate about her real thoughts, feelings, and intentions.^[83] In the words of the literary scholar Lionel Gossman, "Manon is constantly reborn and reinvented in the minds of generations of readers, none of whom can claim to possess her finally or determine who she really is."^[84]

The earliest reviews in 1733 saw Manon as sympathetic, but unexpectedly so.^[75][72] R.A. Francis says: "The standard novel heroine in the generations preceding Prévost was a princess pure as driven snow, and Prévost's originality is to have Des Grieux apply language appropriate to such a princess to a girl of much lower birth and dubious moral standards, leaving the reader to decide how appropriate this language is."^[85] Eighteenth-century audiences described her as an unworthy "whore" (French: catin) who was nonetheless appealing due to the sincerity of her love for des Grieux.^[75][72] She was both blamed and forgiven for des Grieux's corruption.^[86] The illustrations in the 1753 edition reinforced the image of Manon as someone to be loved, pitied, and forgiven for her mistakes.^[87]

👁 Bright red etching of a nude woman seductively offering an apple

Manon's reputation began to change in the nineteenth century, as she became a near-mythological figure,^[77] and an archetype of feminine beauty.^[88] Rather than being a simple, lighthearted girl of common birth, she was depicted as either a femme fatale who destroys des Grieux, or as a hooker with a heart of gold who is redeemed through her death.^[77] In 1832, Alfred de Musset's poem Namouna described Manon as "an astonishing sphinx, a true siren, a thrice feminine heart".^[77] Alexandre Dumas fils, whose novel The Lady of the Camellias (1848) was heavily inspired by Manon Lescaut, wrote of Manon: "you are sensuality, you are instinct, you are pleasure, the eternal temptation of man".^[77] Adaptations like the popular opera Manon (1884) characterized Manon as powerfully seductive.^[77] The literary historian Naomi Segal summarizes this period as one in which most critics "tend to view Manon as if she were a real woman and to heap upon her all the myths which operate within sexual politics in the non-fictional world".^[89]

Twentieth-century scholarly interpretations tend to see Manon as the victim, not of her own weakness, but of various social systems.^[90][91] For these readers, des Grieux's version of events is considered suspect,^[92] and it is important to imagine how Manon might have narrated her story differently.^[90][29] Feminist theorists like Nancy K. Miller and Segal see Manon as a narrative victim of patriarchy.^[90] Cultural-historical theorists see the novel as a conflict between aristocratic and bourgeois ideologies; Manon is marginalized by her class, but makes savvy decisions to strategically ensure her survival.^[90] A post-structuralist reading of the novel aligns Manon with the sign, inherently elusive in meaning.^[93] Outside of academia, modern readers sometimes find Manon underdeveloped as a character.^[94] Twenty-first century adaptations reinforced a sociological interpretation of Manon's character.^[95] Several adaptations translate the story to more recent time periods in French history, in which Manon is always a non-conformist who boldly pursues love despite disadvantaged circumstances.^[96]

According to the literary scholar English Showalter, Prévost "set a style for the whole century" with the novel's emphasis on regretful retrospective tales narrated from confinement: "Dozens of fictional narrators preface their works by explaining that they hope the story of their own errors and misfortunes will serve as a guide to others."^[97] R.A. Francis compares des Grieux's retrospective narration to that of La Vie de Marianne (1731–⁠1745),^[98] and identifies Adolphe (1816), Carmen (1845), and the works of André Gide as further successors.^[99] Showalter also says that Prévost's "globetrotting characters," who "dash about the world," inspired subsequent French novelists to depict expansive global travel.^[100]

Manon Lescaut is credited with inspiring numerous nineteenth-century novels centred on the trope of the fallen woman.^[101] In 1875, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly wrote that "Abbé Prévost’s Manon spawned the other Manons with which contemporary literature abounds. Manon Lescaut was the generative atom of these loose women that swarm within it, like a plague of Egypt".^{[101][note 11]} Novels influenced by Manon include: The Lady of the Camellias (1848)^[101] and Le Régent Mustel (1852) by Alexandre Dumas fils;^[102] Nana (1880) by Émile Zola;^[103] Sapho (1884) by Alphonse Daudet; and La Câlineuse (1900) by Hugues Rebell.^[101] More recently, the novel L’homme-sœur (2004) by Patrick Lapeyre based its love triangle on Manon Lescaut.^[104]

Although ballets and operas of Manon Lescaut became popular,^[105] only three theatrical dramas had even a modest success: The Virtuous Courtesan (1772), Manon Lescaut et le chevalier Desgrieux (1820), and Manon Lescaut (1851).^[106] The Virtuous Courtesan (French: La Courtisane vertueuse) was the first adaptation of Manon Lescaut.^[106][3] A theatrical comedy which ends with Manon surviving,^[107] it attempted to mix an emotional portrayal of the lovers with some humour,^[106] but reviewers found it far inferior to the novel.^[3] There were a small number of dramas in the eighteenth century and the Romantic period, followed by a larger number in the early twentieth century.^[108] Relatively few of the early theatrical adaptations of Manon Lescaut have survived.^[109]

The literary historian Jean Sgard argues that operatic adaptations came late in the legacy of the novel because the story's mixture of genres was incompatible with the eighteenth century's dominant genre of serious opera characterized by Handel and Rameau.^[110] The first operatic adaptation, in 1836, was not a success.^[110] An important change in operatic precedent came after Giuseppe Verdi's highly successful 1853 opera, La traviata ("The Fallen Woman").^[111] La traviata is based on the play and novel The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas fils, which are themselves heavily inspired by Manon Lescaut.^[112] After 1853, six operas based on Manon Lescaut were written.^[113] These operas varied widely in how they adapted the story: it was divided into differing numbers of sections (from three to seven acts), and adaptations existed in the different operatic genres of comic opera, opera, and lyric drama.^[113] The most renowned adaptations of Manon Lescaut are the operas by Daniel Auber (1856), Jules Massenet (1884), and Giacomo Puccini (1893).^[3]

👁 Black and white photograph. Manon, seated, gives the camera a direct and provocative look; des Grieux, eyes closed, leans in as if smelling her hair. Both wear eighteenth-century garb.

Manon Lescaut was adapted several times after the invention of film.^[114] The first was a 1908 silent film adaptation of Puccini's opera.^[115] Several more silent films followed, of which nearly all are lost due to the degradation of nitrate film; the only one to survive in full is a 1927 Hollywood adaptation titled When a Man Loves.^[116] According to the literary historian Alan J. Singerman, several early films alter the plot to present Manon as an innocent victim who will be more sympathetic to film audiences.^[117]

Early adaptations were period films, set in the early eighteenth century;^[114] later film adaptations translate the novel's story to a contemporary setting.^[96] The 1949 film Manon by Henri-Georges Clouzot depicts des Grieux as a member of the French Resistance and Manon as a Nazi collaborator; he and Manon enter the black market and eventually stowaway to Palestine with a group of Jewish refugees.^[95][118] In Manon 70 by Jean Aurel, released in 1968 and set in the near-future of 1970, des Grieux is a globetrotting radio journalist who tags along with Manon's sugar baby lifestyle;^[119] instead of ending with Manon's tragic death, this film concludes with both Manon and des Grieux hitchhiking.^[95]

👁 Richly coloured painting of des Grieux half-dressed in eighteenth-century garb drawing his sword and running toward a group of shadowy men in the doorway, while Manon (in a chemise) climbs out of a large satin-curtained bed

In the mid-eighteenth century, it was unusual for serious novels to include illustrations, which were primarily associated with comic works like Don Quixote (1605–1615) or Gil Blas (1715–1735).^[23] Illustrations were first introduced in the 1753 revised edition, where Prévost personally praised and endorsed them.^[120] These included a vignette by Jean-Jacques Pasquier and eight plates: two drawn by Hubert-François Gravelot and engraved by Jacques-Philippe Le Bas, and the rest by Pasquier.^[121] The scholar Jean Sgard interprets the eight plates as a French parallel to William Hogarth's series A Harlot's Progress (1732) and A Rake's Progress (1734).^[120]

The novel does not contain any specific descriptions of Manon's physical appearance,^[122] and the first illustrations did not eroticize her.^[123] A 1797 edition introduced an illustration of Manon with her breasts visible under her nightshirt.^[123]

After the 1753 edition, new illustrated editions were produced most decades from 1780 to 1980.^[124] Nonetheless, Manon Lescaut attracted substantially fewer illustrations than other bestsellers of the period like Voltaire's 1759 novella Candide.^[124] A 1963 catalogue identified 63 editions with original or notable illustrations.^[124] These include a 1928 edition with red-and-black, eroticized Jugendstil illustrations by Hans Henning Otto Harry Baron von Voigt.^[125] The novel also inspired a range of standalone visual interpretations (i.e., prints and paintings), though again fewer than similar eighteenth-century bestsellers; the visual iconography of Paul et Virginie (1788), for example, more firmly entered popular culture.^[124]

The 1753 version of the novel is more common in modern editions.^[18][126] English translations of the original 1731 version of the novel include Helen Waddell's 1931 translation with a foreword by George Saintsbury.^[127] For the 1753 revision there are English translations by, among others, L. W. Tancock (Penguin, 1949—which divides the 2-part novel into a number of chapters),^[128] Donald M. Frame (Signet, 1961—which notes differences between the 1731 and 1753 editions),^[129] Angela Scholar (Oxford, 2004—with extensive notes and commentary),^[130] and Andrew Brown (Hesperus, 2004—with a foreword by Germaine Greer).^[131] There is also a 1999 edition, published by Bristol Classical Press and edited by P. Byrne, which presents the text in French with notes and commentary in English.^[132]

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• Gasster, Susan (1985). "The Practical Side of Manon Lescaut". Modern Language Studies. 15 (4): 102–109. doi:10.2307/3194653. ISSN 0047-7729. JSTOR 3194653.
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• Gossman, Lionel (1982). "Male and Female in Two Short Novels by Prévost". The Modern Language Review. 77 (1): 29–37. doi:10.2307/3727491. ISSN 0026-7937. JSTOR 3727491.
• Harrisse, Henry (1896). L'abbé Prévost; histoire de sa vie et des oeuvres d'après des documents nouveaux. Paris C. Lévy.
• Ionescu, Christina (2016). "The Visual Journey of Manon Lescaut: Emblematic Tendencies and Artistic Innovation". Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 39 (4): 559–577. doi:10.1111/1754-0208.12419. ISSN 1754-0208.
• Johnson, Joe (2002). "Philosophical Reflection, Happiness, and Male Friendship in Prévost's Manon Lescaut". Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture. 31 (1): 169–190. doi:10.1353/sec.2010.0009. ISSN 1938-6133.
• Lecarme-Tabone, Eliane (1992). "Manon, Marguerite, Sapho et les autres". Romantisme. 76: 23–41. doi:10.3406/roman.1992.6029.
• Leichman, Jeffrey M. (2017). "Deneuve's Manon". The French Review. 91 (1): 93–104. doi:10.1353/tfr.2017.0393. ISSN 2329-7131.
• Mason, Haydn (1982). "Money and the Establishment: Prévost (1697–1763)". French Writers and their Society 1715–1800. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 90–104. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-04660-7_6. ISBN 978-1-349-04662-1.
• Matoré, Georges, ed. (1953). "Avantpropos" [Foreword]. Histoire du Chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (in French). Librairie Droz. ISBN 978-2-600-02390-0. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Parsons, Nicola (2009). Reading gossip in early eighteenth-century England. Palgrave studies in the Enlightenment, romanticism and cultures of print. Houndmills, Balsingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-24476-4.
• Prévost, Antoine François (1753). Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux, et de Manon Lescaut (in French).
• Prévost, Antoine François (1731). Mémoires et avantures d'un homme de qualité, qui s'est retiré du monde (in French).
• Ross, Kristin (1983). "The Narrative of Fascination: Pathos and Repetition in 'Manon Lescaut'". The Eighteenth Century. 24 (3): 199–210. ISSN 0193-5380. JSTOR 41467296.
• Scholar, Angela, ed. (2004). "Introduction". The Story of the Chevalier Des Grieux and Manon Lescaut (Oxford World's Classics ed.). Oxford : New York : Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-284065-3.
• Segal, Naomi (1986). The Unintended Reader: Feminism and Manon Lescaut. Cambridge UP. ISBN 978-0-521-30723-9.
• Seth, Catriona (2011). "French Studies: Nouvelles de la république des lettres". Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 34 (4): 479–486. doi:10.1111/j.1754-0208.2011.00445.x.
• Sgard, Jean, ed. (1991). "Introduction". Manon Lescaut. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-9910-04-175-4.
• Sgard, Jean (1995). Vingt études sur Prévost d'Exiles (in French). ELLUG. ISBN 978-2-902709-96-0.
• Showalter, English (1975). "Symbolic Space and Fictional Forms in the Eighteenth-Century French Novel". NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction. 8 (3): 214–225. doi:10.2307/1345104. ISSN 0029-5132. JSTOR 1345104.
• Singerman, Alan J. (2000). "Manon Lescaut au cinema". In Francis, Richard A. (ed.). L' Abbé Prévost au tournant du siècle. SVEC (in French). Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. pp. 369–382. ISBN 978-0-7294-0733-5.
• Stewart, Philip (1984). Rereadings: Eight Early French novels. Birmingham, Alabama: Summa Publications. ISBN 978-0-917786-00-6.
• Manon Lescaut: A New Translation. Translated by Tancock, L.W. Penguin Classics. 1949.
• Manon Lescaut. Translated by Waddell, Helen. Constable and Company. 1934.
• Wynn, Thomas (February 2006). "Manon Through the Lens of Clouzot (1948): 'Images troublantes et précises'". French Cultural Studies. 17 (1): 73–85. doi:10.1177/0957155806060796.
• Wyngaard, Amy S. (2019). "Femme Fatale or Feminist Heroine? Interpreting Manon Lescaut". Romance Notes. 59 (3): 459–470. ISSN 0035-7995. JSTOR 26912366.

• C. J. Betts, "The Cyclical Pattern of the Narrative in Manon Lescaut", French Studies, 41 (1987), 395-407.
• Patrick Brady, Structuralist perspectives in criticism of fiction : essays on Manon Lescaut and La Vie de Marianne, P. Lang, Berne ; Las Vegas, 1978.
• Cronk, N. (2002) ‘Picturing the Text: Authorial Direction of Illustration in Eighteenth-Century French Fiction’, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 14(3–4): 393–414.
• (in French) Maurice Daumas, Le Syndrome des Grieux : la relation père/fils au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: Seuil, 1990 ISBN 978-2-02-011397-7.
• (in French) René Démoris, Le Silence de Manon, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995 ISBN 978-2-13-046826-4.
• J. I. Donohue, "The Death of Manon: A Literary Inquest", L'Esprit Créateur, 12 (1972), 129-146.
• B. Fort, "Manon's Suppressed Voice: The Use of Reported Speech", Romantic Review, 76 (1985), 172-191.
• R. A. Francis, The abbé Prévost's first-person narrators, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1993.
• J. P. Gilroy, The Romantic Manon and Des Grieux : Images of Prévost's Heroine and Hero in Nineteenth-century French Literature, Sherbrooke, Quebec: Naaman, 1980.
• L. Gossmann, "Prévost's Manon: Love in the New World", Yale French Studies, 40 (1968), 91-102.
• C. Mauron, "Manon Lescaut et le mélange es genres", in L'Abbé Prévost : actes du colloque d'Aix-en-Provence, 20 et 21 décembre 1963, Gap: Ophrys, 1965, 113-118.
• (in French) Vivienne Mylne, Prévost : Manon Lescaut, London: Edward Arnold, 1972.
• (in French) Jean Sgard, L'Abbé Prévost : labyrinthes de la mémoire, Paris: PUF, 1986 ISBN 2-13-039282-2.
• (in French) Jean Sgard, Prévost romancier, Paris: José Corti, 1968 ISBN 2-7143-0315-3.
• (in French) Alan Singerman, L'Abbé Prévost : L'amour et la morale, Geneva: Droz, 1987.
• Alan Singerman, "A 'fille de plaisir' and her 'grechulon': Society and Perspective in Manon Lescaut'", L'Esprit Créateur, 12 (1972), 118-128.

• Manon Lescaut (in English) at Project Gutenberg
• Manon Lescaut (in French) at Project Gutenberg
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  Manon Lescaut (in French) free audiobook
• Images from an illustrated 1885 French edition

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