Manon Lescaut has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result June 7, 2025 Good article nominee Listed November 25, 2025 Peer review Reviewed
	A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 13, 2025. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the 1731 novel Manon Lescaut did not become popular in France until after it was banned for immorality?
Current status: Good article

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Though this article is an excerpt from another media, its current formatting does not lend itself to easy understanding. Also,It does not meet standards for formatting, at least to my knowledge. Finally, since this is an exceprt, I believe that encyclopedia could possibly still be under copyright.

[Additional note] In the mystery story "Clouds of Witness", by Dorothy L. Sayers (c. 1927), the novel "Manon Lescaut" plays an important part in the life of one of the main supporting characters; indeed, his life is practically modeled on "Manon".Mhasselman (talk) 02:38, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to clean up this article (and read the damn book too!) I have posted some notes on this subject at User:Foofy/Notes on Manon Lescaut, if anyone wants to help! Foofy 07:31, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Note added May 28, 2010: I've found a statement in the article that is factually incorrect. I'm a newbie so I don't want to edit it, let me describe the error here. The statement is: "In Act I of Alexandre Dumas, fils's play The Lady of the Camellias, the characters attend a performance of the ballet Manon Lescaut." This occurs in the John Neumeier ballet, but not in the Dumas play based on the novel. I've read through the 1852 Dumas play in French and the ballet scene simply does not appear. Neumeier confirms that he added the character of Manon in an interview he gave for the La Scala premiere. I found a copy on a message board, I don't have a good reference for this, but it was a 2007 press release. The quote is:

"Unlike Dumas’s drama or Verdi’s opera, I added the characters of Manon Lescaut and Des Grieux in my ballet. I found inspiration for the idea in Dumas’s story, in which Marguerite receives the novel Manon Lescaut as a present from Armand."

Manon also pops up in the 1921 Valentino silent classic 'Camille' as a gift book then a film within a film. Jbgfour (talk) 04:48, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(CudBwrong (talk) 18:32, 28 May 2010 (UTC)) Even in 1852, Dumas is reluctant to violate the classical unity of place, historically important for French dramatists. Act I takes place in Marguerite's boudoir. Each act has its own setting. (CudBwrong (talk) 18:47, 28 May 2010 (UTC))[reply]

This might seem like a stupid question, but can somebody tell me how to pronounce "Manon Lescaut." I was told it's a bit like "man-oh lesk-ow," but I'm not sure. --Foofy 18:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. You're actually pretty close. To pronounce the "non" in "Manon", make your mouth into a rounded "O" and add a slight "n" to the end of the sound. Also, "au" makes an "oh" sound in French, so that Lescaut is pronounced "les-koh". French pronunciation is much more predictable than English, so that once you know the sounds that letters and short letter combinations make, you can deduce the pronunciation fairly accurately. --Prionesse 20:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I will check out some French stuff, it always bugs me when I can't pronounce foreign words and names anywhere near close. --Foofy 19:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 07:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the Italian film Addio Zio Tom on a slave breeders farm is shown his family gravestones, one of the gravestones reads "Lescaut 1780-1808" i believe this is a reference and maybe should be listed as one as both have base roots in Louisiana. 23.248.1.120 (talk) 00:18, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 12:42, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The tragic conclusion of Manon Lescaut (1731)

• ... that the 1731 novel Manon Lescaut (scene pictured) didn’t get popular in France until after it was banned for immorality ? Source: Mason 1982, p. 99: "The novel first appeared in Amsterdam in 1731. But despite success to the point of being sold out in Holland and England, and further acclaim in Germany... it attracted no attention in France ... The novel however remained unknown in France until June 1733, when a new edition from Amsterdam was sold in Paris ... on 5 October the syndics charged with the task of examining new publications seized copies on sale ... If anything, the novel benefited all the more from this excellent publicity, and the fact that a particularly fine edition was published in 1735 seems to bear this out."
  • ALT1: ... that the simple, lighthearted title character of the 1731 novel Manon Lescaut (scene pictured) was seen as a femme fatale 150 years later ? Source: Scholar 2004 xxix: "Prevost's slip of a girl of common birth, witty and fun-loving, streetwise rather than mysterious, acquired the status of a myth, that of the femme fatale, the bewitching temptress, seductive as a siren, enigmatic as a sphinx"
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Series fiction
  • Comment: The DYK checker tool may show that the article has not been 5x expanded, but that's because it was larger (with trivia cruft) in 2019. When I started expanding it, it was only 3055 B (490 words).

5x expanded by LEvalyn (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 9 past nominations.

~ L 🌸 (talk) 03:57, 9 February 2025 (UTC).[reply]

• Hi @LEvalyn: This article, >5x expanded from 3038 to 16672 characters, is new enough, long enough, and well-written encyclopaedic work. However, is it possible to get some citations for the "Translations" section? Best, Tenpop421 (talk) 21:05, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Tenpop421: Done. Thanks also for fixing the formatting for "scene pictured" in the hook. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 03:29, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Good to go. Tenpop421 (talk) 09:27, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am thinking of trying for my first FA with this article, and I would value suggestions and advice before I nominate. I'm aware that a few of the explanatory footnotes about adaptations managed to sneak by without citations, and will be citing them soon. What else belongs on my "to-do" list? I would particularly value input on making sure the article will be accessible to a broad audience, because I am sure I have blind spots. Thank you! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 08:55, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@LEvalyn No comments here in quite a while, do you still want to keep this open? RoySmith (talk) 23:20, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, no, I think it's OK to close -- thank you! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:49, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@LEvalyn: I've made some comments off-Wiki but I thought I'll comment on the peer review. You've done a pretty good job on sourcing and some of the sources are in French, so I'll assume good faith on that. Feel absolutely free to correct me if I'm wrong Icepinner 10:34, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Most of the websites don't have archived links, whereas [88] and [89] does. Yes, these are offline sources, but FAC requires consistent formatting.
• Also those sources are not news publications and should not be italicised. Use the publisher parameter.
• If the date of publication is unknown, use date of access.
• [94] the uploader of the video does not appear to be the author/publisher of the original film, possible WP:COPYLINK unless the film is in the public domain, I believe.

• Brown 2004 should be above Chrisholm

• They're organised alphabetically or by year per WP:FURTHER and Wikipedia:Further reading.
• I found the ISBNs for Brady 1978, Francis 1993, and Singerman 1987. This could indicate that other publications listed here are missing their ISBNs. This may or may not be pointed out during the FAC review. I don't think it's actually required to have consistent formatting for further reading sections but I think it's a good idea to be consistent with it.

Just a general reply to say, thank you for all of these notes! I appreciate you catching these, and I will set about polishing them immediately. For the film, it's very worth checking but there's no COPYLINK problem; per German copyright law the film is in the public domain, since the director died in 1935. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:26, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Regarding COPYLINK, I was worried if the video needed to be in the US public domain to be cited as a source on Wikipedia, though after talking with some editors off-Wiki, it's completely fine to cite that video. Keep in mind this question will most likely be inevitably brought up on the FAC review by another editor. Icepinner 09:24, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This looks interesting! I'll be back with a review soon, probably over the weekend. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 03:37, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, let's do this! Citation numbers from this revision.

• This article looks nicely fleshed out already, but I see a lot of entries in § Further reading that seem like they could be cited in the article. FAs must be comprehensive, so you're probably going to want to look into these before a candidacy. This is primarily the reason I'm not going too in-depth with a prose review here.
• I understand the time period could mean that not much information about the Prévost's writing process has survived, but § Composition and publication in particular seems a little lean, speaking as a reader without any background knowledge on French literature.
• Consider putting the French title (at least the pronunciation) in a footnote to avoid bloating the lead sentence.
• Similarly for the other parenthetical French phrases, but I'm less worried about those.
• Delineate the title from the IPA with a semicolon, and preferably provide a third parameter to the {{IPA}} template.
• If we're specifying the text is at the French Wikisource, I'd say to also specify English for clarity.
• "and is the most reprinted novel in French literature" seems like a fairly exceptional claim. Is Sgard 1991, an introduction to the novel, strong enough sourcing, and/or is Jean Sgard an expert on the topic?
• Where in the body is the phrase "... which is now the most commonly reprinted version." supported?
• I would aggressively condense the list of adaptations in the lead, and prefer not listing any of them unless one stands out from the others in importance somehow.
• Are Roman numerals for the volumes common practice in this context?
• I wonder if it might make more sense to group the discussion of the publications with the reception, since the censorship and subsequent Streisand popularity seem related, instead of the background and writing process.
• The unusual focus on exact monetary figures in the novel seems to be spilling into § Social rank and money; all of them seem to be sourced to Sgard 1991 again.
• I probably wouldn't call "The character of Manon" a theme. This subsection is also unlike the others in that it focuses on the changing views of scholars over time rather than presenting an atemporal-ish view of the novel itself. Maybe try incorporating this into the reception?
• "When first published in 1731 ... it was not discussed separately" Discussed by whom?
• § Adaptations and its long lists break the flow of the article, in my opinion. Do you think it would be appropriate to split out into its own article? This section could then be condensed to a paragraph or two in summary style.
• There's an odd MOS:SANDWICH issue when viewing this section in Vector 2010. Not the default skin, but readers are still presented with the option to see this view if they "switch to the old look", so I think it's worth addressing.
• A citation is repeated four times consecutively in § Illustrations. (Also, I found an HTML comment: "note: there's more to say about these illustrations in Scholar". :) )
  • As a side note, I thought Scholar 2004 was a typo or something, but nope, that's just their name. —TS
• I often see "legacy" sections in articles about works that have had a significant cultural impact (which, judging by the number of adaptations, this novel has). It would be great to read about how this novel and the controversy surrounding it impacted French literature — the third paragraph of § Reception touches on it, but it seems to me like there's more to say. § Adaptations and § Translations may also be better contextualized as subsections of a legacy section.
• Why do we need such substantial quotes from the novel in the footnotes? Footnote 1 seems incredibly long for just an image caption.
• What makes this English National Ballet article a high-quality reliable source? The URL seems to indicate that it's a blog post.
  • Hm, I wrestled with this one. I liked it because it's the most comprehensive run-down of all the adaptations in one place that I came across, with a lot of useful details. I don't feel like it's exactly a blog in the WP:UGC sense: it's published by the professional media team of the English National Ballet, and they appear to often write about dance/performance history in their "news" when they promote related productions (like this article about Giselle). Since the ENB is a non-profit cultural institution, I'm willing to consider them subject experts. I'd feel even better about it if it had a byline, but that's the case I'd make for it, anyway. Do you think it's too dubious to keep at FA? ~ L 🌸 (talk) 04:56, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I do think it would receive particular scrutiny during a source review — the URL does have "blog" in it, after all. It's good to have a prior consensus to fall back on in marginal cases like these, so I think these would be good questions to ask at RSN. —TS

• I think I fixed all of the p./pp. errors and en dashes between numbers, but I'd appreciate it if you could do a second pass through in case I missed anything.
• Similarly with wrapping French phrases in the prose with {{lang}}.
• Add archives in the web sources for consistency.
• The citations mention publication locations inconsistently.
• Hate to contradict Icepinner above, but MOS:WEBITALICS advises against using the |publisher= parameter the way they've suggested — check the footnote.
• MOS:FURTHER advises using the same citation style as the other references, so switch them over to CS1 templates and perhaps use a {{refbegin}}/{{refend}} pair.
• Do we need four language versions in § External links?
• Consider using {{Sister project links}}, since there are a few projects that probably have relevant pages, including Wikidata.

@LEvalyn: Please let me know if you have any questions. By the way, I actually have a novel at PR too! I've seen the good work you've done writing and reviewing literature articles in the past, so I would especially appreciate your feedback there if you have the time and interest. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 17:14, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your feedback and advice! This will take me a while to address -- especially your, alas, quite correct observation that there's more reading to do for comprehensiveness -- but I appreciate all of it. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 04:14, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No worries! I realize my comments were probably overwhelming to receive all at once, but thankfully there's no deadline at PR, so take all the time you need. Feel free to ping me if you have follow-up questions, by the way! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 16:13, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if this will be worth bringing into the article in any detail, but Bloom 2009 p 22 has some leads re: the prevalence of autobiographical interpretations in the 19thC and in Jean Sgard. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:00, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]