Abbé Prévost

Antoine François Prévost, known as the Abbé Prévost, was a French novelist and priest, born in 1697 in Hesdin and died in 1763. He entered the Jesuits and later the Benedictines, left his order without permission, and spent years in exile in England and Holland. His long novel Memoirs of a Man of Quality is now read only for its final volume, Manon Lescaut, the story of a young nobleman ruined by his love for a faithless girl, which was briefly banned in France and later inspired operas by Massenet and Puccini. Prévost also translated Samuel Richardson's novels into French, helping bring the English novel to continental readers.