Little is known about the life of the Abbé Prévost. Despite scholars’ efforts to demystify his life, his biography reads as if it were itself a novel. This is partly due to an ill-advised heir who had the author’s last posthumous works burned in 1844. Today, most of what scholars know about him comes from Henri Roddier’s
L’Abbé Prévost L’Homme et l’œuvre(1955).
Antoine François Prévost was born to a family of civil officers on April 1, 1697 in Hesdin, near Montreuil-sur-Mer. Although he was a diligent student, he fled his Jesuit school in 1712 because of a love affair and enlisted in the royal army. After the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) put an end to the War of Spanish Succession, Prévost returned to his studies and completed his novitiate training. The period of 1716 to
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Citation: Shrem, Max. "Antoine-François Prévost d'Exiles". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 July 2018 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3634, accessed 24 November 2024.]