WORLD'S MOST POPULAR BOOK- THE LITTLE PRINCESS

The Little Prince (French: Le Petit Prince; French pronunciation: ​[lə pəti pʁɛ̃s]), first published in 1943, is a novella, the most famous work of French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

The Little Prince
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Author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Original title Le Petit Prince
Translator (English editions)
Katherine Woods
T.V.F. Cuffe
Irene Testot-Ferry
Alan Wakeman
Richard Howard[1]
David Wilkinson
Illustrator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Cover artist Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Country France
Language French
English
Publisher Reynal & Hitchcock (U.S.)
Gallimard (France)[2]
Publication date
September 1943 (U.S.: English & French)
(France, French, 1945)[2][Note 1]
Preceded by Pilote de guerre (1942)
Followed by Lettre à un otage (1944)
The novella is one of the most-translated books in the world and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France. Translated into 300[3] languages and dialects,[4][5] selling nearly two million copies annually, and with year-to-date sales of over 140 million copies worldwide,[6] it has become one of the best-selling books ever published.[7][8][9][Note 2]

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Saint-Exupéry escaped to North America. Despite personal upheavals and failing health, he produced almost half of the writings for which he would be remembered, including a tender tale of loneliness, friendship, love, and loss, in the form of a young prince visiting Earth. An earlier memoir by the author had recounted his aviation experiences in the Sahara Desert, and he is thought to have drawn on those same experiences in The Little Prince.

Since its first publication, the novella has been adapted to numerous art forms and media, including audio recordings, radio plays, live stage, film, television, ballet, and opera.[4][11]

Overview Edit

The Little Prince is a poetic tale, with watercolour illustrations by the author, in which a pilot stranded in the desert meets a young prince visiting Earth from a tiny asteroid. The story is philosophical and includes social criticism of the adult world. It was written during a period when Saint-Exupéry fled to North America subsequent to the Fall of France during the Second World War, witnessed first hand by the author and captured in his memoir Flight to Arras.[12] The adult fable, according to one review, is actually "...an allegory of Saint-Exupéry's own life—his search for childhood certainties and interior peace, his mysticism, his belief in human courage and brotherhood, and his deep love for his wife Consuelo but also an allusion to the tortured nature of their relationship."[13]

Though ostensibly styled as a children's book, The Little Prince makes several observations about life and human nature.[14] For example, Saint-Exupéry tells of a fox meeting the young prince during his travels on Earth. The story's essence is contained in the fox saying that "One sees clearly only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eye." [15] Other key morals articulated by the fox are: "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed," and "It is the time you have lost for your rose that makes your rose so important." The fox's messages are arguably the book's most famous quotations because they deal with human relationships.