Manon Lescaut

In 1731, a runaway priest published a short novel about a young man who destroys his life for a woman who will never stop betraying him. The authorities burned it. Readers devoured it. Nearly three centuries later, it remains one of the most ruthless portraits of obsessive love ever written. The Chevalier des Grieux is seventeen when he meets Manon Lescaut. Within hours he has abandoned his family, his education, and his future. What follows is a downward spiral through gambling, theft, fraud, prison, and exile, all narrated by des Grieux himself in a voice so persuasive you almost forget that he is the architect of his own ruin. Manon is beautiful, faithless, practical, and almost entirely silent. We know her only through the words of the man who loves her. A novel about the gap between knowing better and doing better. Some gaps never close. A Raven's Gate Classics edition.