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.
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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.
