The Little Prince

The Little Prince (French: *Le Petit Prince*) is a novella by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who also created its illustrations. First released in both English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943, it was published in France only after the country’s liberation, as Saint-Exupéry’s works had been banned under the Vichy Regime. The narrative follows a young prince as he travels to different planets, including Earth, exploring themes of loneliness, friendship, love, and loss. Though written in the style of a children’s book, it offers reflections on life, adults, and human nature. It became Saint-Exupéry’s most successful work, with an estimated 140 million copies sold worldwide, placing it among the best-selling books in history. By November 2024, it had been translated into 600 languages and dialects, making it the second most translated work ever, after the Bible. The story has been adapted into numerous forms, including audio recordings, radio plays, stage productions, films, television, ballet, and opera.

The book opens with the narrator recalling his first drawing at age six: a boa constrictor that has swallowed an elephant. When adults saw it, they thought it was a hat, so he drew a second picture showing the inside of the snake to clarify. Adults then advised him to abandon drawing for something practical. As an adult, he kept the first drawing and would show it to new acquaintances to test if they were as perceptive as a child, but they always saw a hat. He learned to discuss only “reasonable” matters with them.

The narrator becomes a pilot. One day, his plane crashes in the Sahara desert, far from help. While trying to repair it before his water runs out, he meets a young boy he calls the little prince. The prince asks for a drawing of a sheep. The narrator first shows him the elephant-inside-the-snake picture, which the prince correctly interprets—surprising the narrator. After three failed attempts to draw a sheep, the frustrated narrator draws a crate and says the sheep is inside, which delights the prince.

Over several days, as the narrator works on his plane, the prince tells his story. He once lived on a house-sized asteroid known on Earth as B-612. The narrator mentions a Turkish astronomer who discovered this asteroid but was ignored at a presentation because he wore traditional Turkish clothing. Only after dressing in European clothes—a suit—were his findings accepted. The asteroid has three tiny volcanoes (two active, one dormant) and various plants. The prince regularly cleaned the volcanoes and weeded out unwanted seeds, especially baobab trees that threatened to overrun the surface. He wants a sheep to eat the harmful plants but worries it might also eat plants with thorns.

The prince describes a rose that grew on his asteroid. She exaggerated her ailments and coughed to make him care for her. He built a screen and glass globe to protect her from cold and wind, watered her, and kept caterpillars away. Though he loved her, he felt she was taking advantage of him, so he decided to leave and explore the universe. When they said goodbye, the rose apologized for not showing her love and refused his offer to leave her in the globe, saying she could protect herself. The prince regrets not understanding how to love her while they were together.

After leaving his asteroid, the prince visited six other planets, each inhabited by a single adult: a king who claims everyone is his subject but only gives reasonable orders (like commanding the sun to set at sunset); a conceited man who wants to be admired on his empty planet; a tippler who drinks to forget his shame of drinking; a businessman who counts and catalogs stars to “own” them, blind to their beauty; a lamplighter on a tiny planet where a day lasts a minute, forcing him to light and extinguish his lamp every thirty seconds—the prince loves sunsets and wishes he could stay there, as it has 1,440 sunsets daily; and an elderly geographer who knows nothing of his own planet because he never travels, only recording what explorers see—none of whom exist on his planet. The geographer urges the prince to visit Earth.

Landing in a desert, the prince thinks Earth is uninhabited. He meets a snake that claims it can send him home if he ever wishes. Next, he meets a flower who says she has seen few men in that region, that they have no roots, are blown about by the wind, and live hard lives. Climbing the highest mountain he has ever seen, the prince hopes to see all of Earth and find people, but sees only barren landscape. When he calls out, an echo answers, which he takes for the voice of someone boring who only repeats words.