Le Petit Prince

Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) was published in New York in April 1943, in French and in Katherine Woods’s English translation, by Reynal & Hitchcock. Saint-Exupéry left the United States that same month to join the French air force in North Africa. He disappeared on 31 July 1944 during a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean, never witnessing the extraordinary destiny of his book.

In France, Gallimard began preparing a French edition as early as 1945. Printing was completed on November 30 at the Paul Dupont printing works; the book was intended for publication by Christmas, but its release was ultimately postponed until April 1946, three years after the American publication.

This first Paris edition differs from the New York original in several respects. Lacking Saint-Exupéry’s original watercolors, Gallimard had to reproduce the illustrations from the American edition. This reproduction introduced changes in line and color: the Little Prince’s cape, green in the New York edition, became blue in the French edition.

The resetting of the text introduced several misprints, two of which in particular were only corrected much later: the number of the asteroid discovered by the Turkish astronomer, 325 in the American edition, became 3251 in the Paris edition. On the same illustration, the star observed through the telescope disappeared. Both peculiarities persisted for a long time in later printings and bear witness to the difficult material conditions of this first Paris publication.

This first French edition of Le Petit Prince, in its original dust jacket, has become rare, particularly with its original jacket in good condition. The jacket is often missing, considerably restored, or even replaced with one from a later printing, recognizable on several points.

A good copy, with minimal defects to the dust jacket, rarely so well preserved.