The Little Prince
An aviator forced down in the Sahara by engine trouble meets a small golden-haired boy who has fallen to Earth from a tiny asteroid called B-612. Over eight days in the desert, while the pilot struggles to repair his plane and to find water, the prince tells him about the journeys that brought him to Earth: visits to the kings, businessmen, lamplighters, and geographers of nearby asteroids, and the rose he left behind on his own planet, vain and beloved. With the help of a fox who teaches him what it means to tame and be tamed, the prince begins to understand his rose, and the pilot begins to understand the prince. Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote and illustrated the book in 1942 in wartime exile, and it has since become one of the most translated and best loved fables of the twentieth century, a small story about loneliness, responsibility, and the things that are essential and invisible to the eye.
Where The Little Prince keeps showing up
Three of our editors' lists feature this novel.
Also by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
What you might want to know about The Little Prince
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
An aviator crashes in the Sahara Desert and meets a small boy from the asteroid B-612 who asks him to draw a sheep. Across eight days the prince tells the pilot about his rose, his three volcanoes, and the strange grown-ups he met on the planets between his asteroid and Earth.
The Little Prince was published in 1943. It is in the public domain in most countries; copyright in France and the EU depends on the rule applied (typically lifetime plus 70 years, with extensions for war years for Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who died in 1944).
The Little Prince is widely read by children and adults. Children appreciate the storybook fable; adults catch deeper allegorical content. It is regularly cited as one of the most-translated books in history.
The Little Prince was written by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, published in 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
The Little Prince is 100 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Little Prince takes most readers about 2 hours to finish.
The Little Prince is a standalone novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, not part of a series.
The Little Prince is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
