''The sweetness of her glance - or rather, my evil star already in its ascendant and drawing me to my ruin - did not allow me to hesitate for a moment''So begins the story of Manon Lescaut, a tale of passion and betrayal, of delinquency and misalliance, which moves from early eighteenth-century Paris - with its theatres, assemblies, and gaming-houses - via prison and deportation to a tragic denouement in the treeless waste of Louisiana. It is one of the great love stories, and also one of the most enigmatic: how reliable a witness is Des Grieux, Manon''s lover, whose tale he narrates? Is Manon a thief and a whore, the image of love itself, or a thoroughly modern woman? Pr-st is careful to leave the ambiguities unresolved, and to lay bare the disorders of passion.This new translation includes the vignette and eight illustrations that were approved by Pr-st and first published in the edition of 1753.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the wide
