| The Little Prince | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | 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[2] |
| Illustrator | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry |
| Cover artist | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry |
| Country | United States (English & French)[N 1] France (French) |
| Language | French, English and 250+ other languages and dialects |
| Publisher | Reynal & Hitchcock (U.S.A.) Gallimard (France)[1] |
| Publication date | 1943 (U.S.: English & French) 1945 (France: French)[1] |
| Media type | Hardcover, Paperback, E-book, CD Audiobook, Audio tape, LP record, Filmstrip, plus others |
| ISBN | 978-0-152-02398-0 (English, U.S.A., Howard) 978-2-070-61275-8 (French, France) 978-0-152-16415-7 (French, U.S.A.) |
| Preceded by | Pilote de guerre (1942) |
| Followed by | Lettre à un otage (1944) |
The Little Prince (French: ''Le Petit Prince''), first published in 1943, is a novella and the most famous work of the French aristocrat writer, poet and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944, Mort pour la France).[N 2]
The novella is the most read and also the most translated book in the French language, and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France allowing it to maintain worldwide sales of over one million copies per year.[3][4] It has been translated into more than 250 languages and dialects,[5][6] and has sold more than 200 million copies worldwide,[7] making it one of the best-selling books ever published.[8][9][10]
Saint-Exupéry, a laureate of France's highest literary awards and a reserve military pilot at the start of the Second World War, both wrote and illustrated the manuscript while exiled in the United States after the fall of France. He had traveled there on a personal mission to convince its government to quickly enter the war against Nazi Germany. In the midst of personal upheavals and failing health he produced almost half of the writings he would be remembered for, including a tender tale of loneliness, friendship, love and loss, in the form of a young prince fallen to Earth.[11]
An earlier memoir by the author recounted his aviation experiences in the Sahara desert. He is thought to have drawn on those same experiences for use as plot elements in The Little Prince. Saint-Exupéry's novella has been adapted to various media over the decades, including audio recordings, stage, screen, ballet and operatic works.[5][12][13]
Contents |
Though ostensibly a children's book, The Little Prince makes several profound and idealistic observations about life and human nature. 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 lines uttered by the fox to the little prince: On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. ("One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.")[14] Other key thematic messages are articulated by the fox, such as: "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed" and "It is the time you have devoted to your rose that makes your rose so important."
The reader is introduced to the narrator who, as a young boy, drew a boa constrictor eating an elephant. However, he is discouraged from drawing when all adults who look at his picture see a hat, instead. The narrator attempts to explain what his first picture depicts by drawing another one clearly showing the elephant, disturbing the adults as a result. As such, he decides to become a pilot, which eventually leads to a crash in the Sahara desert.
In the desert, the narrator meets the little prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. Not knowing how to draw a sheep, the narrator shows him the picture of the elephant in the snake. To the narrator's surprise, the prince recognizes the drawing for what it is. After a few failed attempts at drawing a sheep, the narrator draws a box in his frustration, claims that the box holds a sheep inside. Again to the narrator's surprise, the prince is delighted with the result.
The little prince's home asteroid, or "planet", is introduced. The asteroid is the size of a house, has three volcanoes (two active, and one dormant) and a rose, among various other objects. The narrator believes this asteroid to be called B-612. The Prince spends his days caring for the asteroid, pulling out the baobab trees that are constantly trying to take root there. The Prince falls in love with the rose, who appears not to return his love due to her vain nature. The Prince loses his trust in the rose after she lies to him, and grows lonely.
After he reconciles with his rose, the prince leaves to see what the rest of the universe is like. He visits six other asteroids, each of which is inhabited by a foolish adult. The sixth asteroid is inhabited by a geographer, who asks the prince to describe his home. When the prince mentions the rose, the geographer explains that he does not record roses, calling them "ephemeral". The prince is shocked and hurt by this revelation. The geographer recommends that he visit the Earth.
On the Earth, the prince meets a snake that claims to have the power to return him to his home planet, though the prince refuses this offer. The prince then meets a desert flower, who tells him that there are only a handful of men on Earth and that they have no roots, letting the wind blow them around and living hard lives. The prince climbs the highest mountain he has ever seen, in hopes of seeing the whole planet and finding people. However, he only sees a desolate landscape. When the prince calls out, his echo answers him, and he mistakes it for the voices of other humans.
Eventually, the prince comes upon a whole row of rosebushes, and becomes downcast because he thought that his rose was unique. He begins to feel that he is not a great prince at all, as his planet contains only three tiny volcanoes and a flower he now thinks of as common. He lies down in the grass and weeps.
As the prince cries, a fennec fox comes across him. The prince tames the fox, who explains to him that his rose really is unique and special, because she is the one whom the prince loves. The fox also explains that, in a way, the prince has tamed the flower, and that this is why the prince now feels responsible for her.
The prince then comes across a railway switchman and a merchant. The switchman tells the Prince how passengers constantly rush from one place to another aboard trains, never satisfied with where they are and not knowing what they are after. Only the children amongst them bother to look out of the windows. The merchant tells the prince about his product, a pill which eliminates thirst and is very popular, saving people fifty-three minutes a week. The prince replies that he would use the time to walk and find fresh water.
Back in the present, the narrator is dying of thirst, but finds a well with the help of the prince. The narrator later finds the prince discussing his return home with the snake. The prince bids an emotional farewell to the narrator and states that if it looks as though he has died, it is because his body is too heavy to take with him to his planet. The prince warns the narrator not to watch him leave, as it will make him sad. The narrator, realizing what will happen, refuses to leave the prince's side. The prince allows the snake to bite him, and falls without making a sound.
The next morning, the narrator tries to look for the prince, but is unable to find his body. The story ends with a portrait of the landscape where the prince and the narrator met and where the snake took the prince's life. The narrator makes a plea that anyone encountering a strange child in that area who refuses to answer questions should contact the narrator immediately.
In The Little Prince, Saint-Exupéry talks about being stranded in the desert beside a crashed aircraft. This account clearly draws on his own experience in the Sahara, an ordeal he described in detail in his 1939 award-winning memoir Wind, Sand and Stars (original French: Terre des hommes).
On December 30, 1935 at 02:45 a.m., after 19 hours and 44 minutes in the air, Saint-Exupéry, along with his mechanic/navigator André Prévot, crashed in the Sahara desert.[16] They were attempting to break the speed record for a Paris-to-Saigon flight and win a prize of 150,000 francs.[17] Their plane was a Caudron C-630 Simoun,[N 3] and the crash site is thought to have been near to the Wadi Natrun valley, close to the Nile Delta.[18]
Both survived the crash, only to face rapid dehydration in the intense desert heat. Their maps were primitive and ambiguous. Lost among the sand dunes with a few grapes, a single orange, and some wine, the pair had only one day's worth of liquid. They both began to see mirages, which were quickly followed by more vivid hallucinations. By the second and third day, they were so dehydrated that they stopped sweating altogether. Finally, on the fourth day, a Bedouin on a camel discovered them and administered a native rehydration treatment that saved Saint-Exupéry and Prévot's lives.[17]
The rose was inspired by his Salvadoran wife Consuelo de Saint Exupéry and the small home planet was inspired by her small home country El Salvador which is also known as "The Land of Volcanoes" due to having many of them.[19]
In the desert, Saint-Exupéry had viewed a fennec (desert sand fox), which most likely inspired him to create the fox character in the book. In a letter written to his sister Didi from Cape Juby in 1928, he tells her of raising a fennec which he adored.
Saint-Exupéry may have drawn inspiration for the little prince's appearance from himself as a youth. Friends and family would call him le Roi-Soleil (Sun King), due to his golden curly hair. He had also met a precocious eight year old with curly blond hair while residing with a family in Quebec City, Canada in 1942,[20][21] the son of philosopher Charles De Koninck. A third possible inspiration for the little prince has been suggested as that of Land Morrow Lindbergh, the young, golden-haired son of the pioneering American aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow, who lived not far away from the Saint-Exupérys, and whom they met briefly during their stay on Long Island.[22][23]
The little prince's reassurance to the Pilot that his dying body is only an empty shell resembles the last words of Antoine's younger brother François: "Don't worry. I'm all right. I can't help it. It's my body" (from Airman's Odyssey).
The literary device of presenting philosophical and social commentaries in the form of the impressions gained by a fictional extraterrestrial visitor to Earth had already been used by the philosopher and satirist Voltaire in his story Micromégas of 1752—a classic work in French literature which Saint-Exupéry was likely familiar with.
Upon the outbreak of World War II, Saint-Exupéry, a successful pioneering aviator prior to the war, initially flew with a reconnaissance squadron in the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force). After France's defeat in 1940 and its armistice with Germany, he and his wife Consuelo fled occupied France and sojourned in North America, with Saint-Exupéry first arriving by himself at the very end of December 1940. His intention for the visit was to convince the United States to quickly enter the war against Germany and the Axis forces.
Between January 1941 and April 1943 the Saint-Exupérys lived in two penthouse apartments on Central Park South,[24] then the Bevin House mansion in Asharoken, Long Island, N.Y., and still later at a rented house on Beekman Place in New York City.[25][26] During his stay on Long Island, Saint-Exupéry would meet Land Morrow Lindbergh, the young, golden-haired son of the pioneering American aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow.[22][27][N 4] The couple also stayed in Quebec, Canada for five weeks during the late spring of 1942, where they met a precocious eight year old boy with blond curly hair, Thomas, the son of philosopher Charles De Koninck whom the Saint-Exupéry's were residing with.[28][29][30][31]
After returning to the United States from his Quebec speaking tour, Saint-Exupéry was pressed to work on a children's book by Elizabeth Reynal, one of the wives of his U.S. publisher, Reynal & Hitchcock. The French wife of Eugene Reynal had closely observed Saint-Exupéry for several months, and noting his high stress levels and ill health, thought that working on a children's story would help him.[32] The author wrote and illustrated The Little Prince in New York City and Asharoken in mid-to-late 1942, with the manuscript being completed in October.[28][15][33]
Although the book was started in his Central Park South penthouse, Saint-Exupéry soon found New York City's noise and sweltering summer heat too uncomfortable to work in, so Consuelo was dispatched to find improved accommodations. The result was a new home: the Bevin House, a 22 room mansion in Asharoken overlooking Long Island Sound. The author-aviator initially complained "I wanted a hut [but it's] the Palace of Versailles"; however as the weeks wore on and the author became invested in the project, the home would become "....a haven for writing, the best place I have ever had anywhere in my life". He devoted himself to the book on both extended daytime and midnight shifts, fueled by helpings of scrambled eggs on English muffins, gin and tonics, Coke-Colas, cigarettes and numerous reviews by friends and ex-patriots who dropped in to see on their famous countryman. Included among the reviewers was Consuelo's Swiss writer paramour Denis de Rougemont, who also modeled for a painting of the Little Prince lying on his stomach, feet and arms extended up in the air.[26][11] De Rougemont would later help Consuelo write her autobiography, The Tale of the Rose, as well as write his own biography of Saint-Exupéry.
The large white Second French Empire style mansion, hidden behind tall trees, afforded the writer a multitude of work environments. It allowed him to alternately work on his writings, and then on his sketches and watercolours for hours at a time, moving his armchair and paint easel from the library towards the parlor one room at a time in order to follow the Sun's light. His meditative view of the sunsets at the Bevin House eventually became part of the gist of The Little Prince, in which 43 daily sunsets would be discussed. "On your planet..." the story told, "...all you need do is move your chair a few steps."[26][11][N 5]
Only weeks after his novella was first published in April 1943, before Saint-Exupéry had received any of its royalties (he never would), the author-aviator joined the Free French Forces. He would remain immensely proud of The Little Prince, and almost always kept a personal copy with him which he often read to others during the war. As part of a 32 ship military convoy he voyaged to North Africa where he rejoined his old squadron to fight with the Allies, resuming his work as a reconnaissance pilot. Saint-Exupéry was lost in action in a July 1944 spy mission from the moonscapes of Corsica to the continent in preparation for the Allied invasion of occupied France, some three weeks before the liberation of Paris.[11]
All of the novella's simple but elegant watercolour illustrations, which were integral to the story, were painted by Saint-Exupéry. He had studied architecture as a young adult but could nevertheless could not be considered an artist—which he self-mockingly referred to in the novella's introduction. Several of his paintings were done on the wrong side of the delicate onion skin paper that he used, his medium of choice.[26] As with some of his draft manuscripts, he occasionally gave away preliminary sketches to close friends and colleagues; others were even recovered as crumpled balls from the floors in the cockpits of the P-38 Lightnings he later flew. Two or three original Little Prince drawings were reported in the collections of New York artist, sculptor and experimental filmmaker Joseph Cornell.[34] One rare original Little Prince watercolour would be mysteriously sold at a second-hand book fair in Japan in 1994, and subsequently authenticated in 2007.[35][36]
An unrepentant life-long doodler, Saint-Exupéry had for numerous years sketched little people on his napkins, tablecloths, letters to paramours and friends, lined notebooks and other scraps of paper. Early figures took on a multitude of appearances, engaged in a variety of tasks. Some appeared as doll-like figures, baby puffins, angel's with wings, and even a similar Keep On Truckin' figure later to be made famous by Robert Crumb. His characters were frequently seen chasing butterflies; when asked why they did so, Saint-Exupéry, who thought of the figures as his alter-ego, replied that they were actually pursuing a "realistic ideal".[11] Saint-Exupéry eventually settled on the image of the young, precocious child with curly blond hair, an image which would become the subject of speculations as to its source.
In 2001 Japanese researcher Yoshitsugu Kunugiyama surmized that the cover illustration Saint-Exupéry painted for Le Petit Prince deliberately depicted a stellar arrangement chosen to celebrate the author's own centennial of birth. According to Kunugiyama, the cover art Saint-Exupéry drew contained the planets Saturn and Jupiter, plus the star Aldebaran, arranged as an isosceles triangle, a celestial configuration which occurred in the early 1940s, and which he likely knew would next reoccur in 2000.[37] Saint-Exupéry possessed superior mathematical skills and was a master celestial navigator, a vocation he had studied in the French Air Force.
The original autographed manuscript of The Little Prince, as well as various drafts and trial drawings were acquired in 1968 by the Pierpont Morgan Library (now The Morgan Library & Museum) in Manhattan, New York City.[4] The manuscript pages includes content that was struck-through and therefore not published as part of the first edition. In addition to the manuscript, several watercolour illustrations by the author are also held by the museum. They were not part of the first edition.
Katherine Wood's classic English version of 1943 was later joined by other English translations, as her original version contained some errors.[38][39] As of 2009[update], four such additional translations[40] have been published:
Each of these translators approaches the essence of the original, each with their own style and focus.[42][43]
Le Petit Prince is often used as a beginner's book for French language students. As of 2005 it has been translated into over 250 languages and dialects, including the Congolese language Alur and Sardinian.[44] The book is one of the few modern books to have been translated into Latin, as Regulus vel Pueri Soli Sapiunt.[45][46]
In 2005, the book was also translated into Toba, an indigenous language of northern Argentina, as So Shiyaxauolec Nta'a. It was the first book translated into this language since the New Testament of the Bible. Anthropologist Florence Tola commenting on the suitability of the work for Toban translation said there is "nothing strange [when] the Little Prince speaks with a snake or a fox and travels among the stars, it fits perfectly into the Toba mythology."[47]
Linguists have compared the many translations and even editions of the same translation for style, composition, titles, wordings and genealogy. As an example as of 2011 there are approximately 47 translated editions of The Little Prince in Korean, and there are also about 50 different translated editions in Chinese (produced in both mainland China and in Taiwan). Many of them are titled Prince From a Star, while others carry the book title that is a direct translation of The Little Prince.[48] By studying the use of word phrasings, nouns and other content in such translations, linguists can identify the source material for each as to whether it was derived from the original French manuscript or from its first English translation by Katherine Woods, or from a number of adapted sources.[49]
The original French edition would not be published in Saint-Exupéry's homeland by his French publisher Gallimard, until after the end of the Second World War,[1] as the blunt views within his eloquent writings were quickly banned by the Germans in occupied France. Prior to France's liberation new printings of Saint-Exupéry's works were made available there only by means of covert print runs,[50][51] such as that of February 1943 when 1,000 copies of an underground version of his best seller Pilote de guerre, describing the German invasion of France, were printed in Lyon.[52]
Saint-Exupéry's novella has been adapted to various media over the decades, including:
The little prince has himself been adapted to a number of roles, including: