Le Petit Prince
Third printing, with the statement “Third printing”: one of the first American printings, issued the same year as the first edition and one of five printings issued in 1943.
A copy with the famous “crow mark,” a printing flaw visible on page 63, characteristic of the early American French-language printings.
Following the considerable success of Pilote de guerre (Flight to Arras), published in February 1942, the American publisher Curtice Hitchcock suggested that Saint-Exupéry write a children’s tale, inspired by the little figure the writer liked to draw on his letters and manuscripts. Saint-Exupéry decided to illustrate the story himself. Settled with Consuelo at Bevin House, in New Jersey, he worked for several months, most often at night, on this singular work, drawing on his childhood memories, his experiences as an aviator and his reflections on solitude, friendship and the human condition.
Le Petit Prince was published by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943, in French and in Katherine Woods’s English translation. The exact size of the first ordinary printing is not known. Several thousand copies were put into circulation, before the book’s success quickly led to further printings. A deluxe issue of 785 copies numbered and signed by the author was reserved for the two languages: 260 copies in French, including 10 hors commerce, and 525 in English, including 25 hors commerce.
The first American printings are notably distinguished by their cloth boards, stamped with an illustration of the Little Prince on his asteroid, the colors of which vary from printing to printing. The famous “crow mark,” a small printing flaw visible on page 63 in the illustration showing the Little Prince atop a mountain, constitutes another essential bibliographical point. Specific to the American French-language edition, it appears in the first five printings, before disappearing permanently from the sixth printing onward.
The printing statements, from “Second printing” to “Seventh printing,” make it possible to distinguish the reprints, of which only the first five were produced in 1943, all bearing the Reynal & Hitchcock address at 386 Fourth Avenue, New York. From the sixth printing onward, the publisher’s address changes and the crow mark disappears.
Saint-Exupéry left the United States in April 1943 to rejoin the French air forces in North Africa. He never returned to America and disappeared over the Mediterranean on 31 July 1944, during a reconnaissance mission.
The French edition published by Gallimard did not appear until after his death, going on sale in 1946. It differs from the American edition in several respects, down to the colors of certain illustrations: the Little Prince’s cape, green in the New York edition, notably becomes blue in the Paris edition.
A very fine copy of one of the very first printings of Le Petit Prince, published in New York in 1943.