First published in 1943, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has been translated into more than 250 languages, becoming a global phenomenon.

The Sahara desert is the scenery of Little Prince’s story. The narrator’s plane has crashed there and he has scarcely some food and water to survive. Trying to comprehend what caused the crash, the Little Prince appears. The serious blonde little boy asks to draw him a sheep. The narrator consents to the strange fellow’s request. They soon become friends and the Little Prince informs the pilot that he is from a small planet, the asteroid 325, talks to him about the baobabs, his planet volcanoes and the mysterious rose that grew on his planet. He also talks to him about their friendship and the lie that evoked his journey to other planets. Often puzzled by the grown-ups’ behavior, the little traveler becomes a total and eternal symbol of innocence and love, of responsibility and devotion. Through him we get to see how insightful children are and how grown-ups aren’t. Children use their heart to feel what’s really important, not the eyes.

Heart-breaking, funny and thought-provoking, it is an enchanting and endlessly wise fable about the human condition and the power of imagination. A book about both childhood and adulthood, it can be read as a parable, a war story, a classic children's fairy-tale, and many more things besides: The Little Prince is a book for everyone; after all, all grown-ups were children once.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyons on June 29, 1900. Later, in Paris, he failed the entrance exams for the French naval academy and, instead, enrolled at the prestigious art school l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1921 Saint-Exupéry began serving in the military, and was stationed in Strasbourg. There he learned to be a pilot, and his career path was forever settled. 

Saint-Exupéry's next novel, Wind, Sand and Stars, was published in 1939. A great success, the book won the Académie Française's Grand Prix du Roman (Grand Prize for Novel Writing) and the National Book Award in the United States.

On July 31, 1944, he set out from Borgo, Corsica, to overfly occupied France and never returned.

'Of all the books written in French over the past century, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "Le Petit Prince" is surely the best loved in the most tongues.' New Yorker

All grown-ups were children once (but most of them have forgotten). A pilot who has crash landed in the desert awakes to see an extraordinary little boy. '"Please," asks the stranger, "will you draw me a little lamb?"' Baffled by the little prince's incessant questioning, the pilot pulls out his pencil, and starts to draw. As the little prince's curiosity takes them further on their journey together, the pilot is able to piece together an understanding of the tiny planet from which the prince has come and of his incredible travels across the universe.

Französische Originalausgabe

《小王子》是法国著名作家圣埃克絮佩里的一部响誉世界的畅销童话。本书是中、法、英三种语言对照的版本，采用彩色插图并配有难词解析，可以同时兼顾喜爱《小王子》的读者与英语、法语的学习者。

Other bilingual and single language editions (see link http://smarturl.it/Saint-Exupery )

New edition: 30 April 2016

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