Tale
The Little Prince
Le Petit Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry · 1943
Synopsis
An aviator whose plane has broken down in the Sahara desert sees a little boy come up to him and ask him to draw a sheep. The child comes from a tiny planet, asteroid B 612, where he has left three volcanoes and a rose. Before reaching Earth, he visited other asteroids, each inhabited by a single character: a king who believes he rules over everything, a vain man, a drinker, a businessman who counts the stars he believes he owns.
Context
The tale was born of a suggestion made to the author by his American publisher or by the publisher's wife: to draw a children's story from the little figure he was forever sketching. Written in 1942 in the United States and illustrated by his own hand, it appeared in New York in April 1943 from Reynal and Hitchcock, in French and in the English translation by Katherine Woods. As the author's books were banned by Vichy, Gallimard published it in France only after the Liberation, in 1945 or in 1946 depending on the sources.
Who it is for
A short tale illustrated with the author's watercolours; it is addressed to children and adults alike.
Prizes and reception
Translated into several hundred languages and dialects, it is the most widely read work of French literature in the world.
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