Since 1943, the wise little boy from Asteroid B-612 has led children and their adults to deeper understandings of love, friendship, and responsibility. The Little Prince is a cherished story, read by millions of people in more than a hundred languages. In honor of its sixtieth anniversary, Harcourt is proud to present this special edition of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s treasure, which includes a satin bookmark and presentation page, and comes in an elegant cloth slipcase enhanced with gold stamping and embossing. A must-have edition for any collector, this lovely book is also the perfect gift for those new to the wisdom of the Little Prince and the charms of his rose-and-star-filled worlds.
Amazon.com: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his Lockheed P-38 vanished over the Mediterranean during a reconnaissance mission. More than a half century later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power. The narrator is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the apparition of a little, well, prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. "In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey," the narrator recalls. "Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket." And so begins their dialogue, which stretches the narrator's imagination in all sorts of surprising, childlike directions.
The Little Prince describes his journey from planet to planet, each tiny world populated by a single adult. It's a wonderfully inventive sequence, which evokes not only the great fairy tales but also such monuments of postmodern whimsy as Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. And despite his tone of gentle bemusement, Saint-Exupéry pulls off some fine satiric touches, too. There's the king, for example, who commands the Little Prince to function as a one-man (or one-boy) judiciary:
I have good reason to believe that there is an old rat living somewhere on my planet. I hear him at night. You could judge that old rat. From time to time you will condemn him to death. That way his life will depend on your justice. But you'll pardon him each time for economy's sake. There's only one rat.
The author pokes similar fun at a businessman, a geographer, and a lamplighter, all of whom signify some futile aspect of adult existence. Yet his tale is ultimately a tender one--a heartfelt exposition of sadness and solitude, which never turns into Peter Pan-style treacle. Such delicacy of tone can present real headaches for a translator, and in her 1943 translation, Katherine Woods sometimes wandered off the mark, giving the text a slightly wooden or didactic accent. Happily, Richard Howard (who did a fine nip-and-tuck job on Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma in 1999) has streamlined and simplified to wonderful effect. The result is a new and improved version of an indestructible classic, which also restores the original artwork to full color. "Trying to be witty," we're told at one point, "leads to lying, more or less." But Saint-Exupéry's drawings offer a handy rebuttal: they're fresh, funny, and like the book itself, rigorously truthful. --James Marcus
[...] I don't know how to begin to describe The Little Prince. In some ways it is like reviewing love itself. While many books have touched me emotionally, this short children's story has gone farther and deeper than any other. Everything about it is perfection: sweet, sad, flawed perfection. It is a tale of tears. It is about loving so much that you would embrace pain, even death, for the beloved, of loving sorrow because it comes from the beloved. It is about allowing yourself to be tamed even if it hurts. Love is a goal in and of itself, a goal that the Little Prince learns to embrace at great cost to himself, but it is not the pure, perfect little one who I love most, nor the hardened but softening adult narrator. My true soul mate is the Fox who invites the Prince, pleads for the Prince, to tame him, to make him his own even though it brings tears and heartbreak. Oh! To love like that! That is the joy and sorrow of human existence, the gift of life. This book is perfection.
A good book for Adult. It's a good story book for adults. I have had it at my home, and now I live alone and I would like to keep one closed to me when I think of it.
A Time Tested Classic If I was stranded on a desert island and could only take one book with me, it would be this one. It does not matter how many times I read this book over the years, every time I pick it up, it is as if I was reading it for the first time. I realize something new and profound with every reading.
This little book is so compact with depth of meaning and wisdom, it is truly as timeless as wisdom itself. If you know of any child, please get them a copy of this book. It is one of those magical tales that is destined to become a lifelong favorite for them.
No wonder it is actor James Dean's favorite book.... and I'm not one to argue with James Dean.
Love the BOOK Will be using it along with the Little Prince mug,bowl, and dish as a baby shower set. Thank you MB
Alas. This translation removes so much of what makes "The Little Prince" such a lovely story. Read the Katherine Woods translation if you can find it. She manages to keep the poetry and the French construction in a way which makes the story much more dear.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
