Manon Lescaut is a ground-breaking novel of passion & immorality, & one of the most famous love stories of all time. The Chevalier des Grieux is still a young man, but already life & bitter experience have worn him to a shell. The kindness of a stranger persuades him to reveal his troubles, the story of his helpless & ill-starred love for Manon, & the mutually destructive affair which has given him, in turn, the joy of sexual love & the misery of betrayal & moral degradation. First published in 1731, Prevost`s story proved to be hugely influential, its passionate & tragic mode inspiring a number of operas & ballets, while the compelling character of Manon prefigures a host of nineteenth-century Romantic heroines.