Abbé Prévost

Antoine François Prévost, known as the Abbé Prévost, was born in 1697 in Hesdin, in the Artois region of northern France. His early life was marked by restlessness and contradiction: he alternated between Jesuit education and military service before taking monastic vows with the Benedictines, only to flee France for England and Holland when his unconventional conduct drew official displeasure. In exile, he supported himself through prolific writing, producing novels, translations, and a literary journal. His masterpiece, Manon Lescaut, was published in 1731 as the final volume of a longer work, Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité, and was immediately recognized as something extraordinary despite being officially condemned and confiscated for its frank treatment of desire. Prévost eventually reconciled with the Church, returned to France, and spent his later years as a man of letters, translating Richardson's novels and producing historical and geographical works. This author hub collects 1 work in the Canon Compass ranking, led by Manon Lescaut.