The little Prince By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Little Prince (French: Le Petit Prince), published in 1943, is French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's most famous novella. Saint-Exupéry wrote it while living in the United States. It has been translated into more than 180 languages and sold more than 80 million copies^[1][2] making it one of the best selling books ever.

An earlier memoir by the author recounts his aviation experiences in the Saharan desert. He is thought to have drawn on these same experiences for use as plot elements in The Little Prince. Saint-Exupéry's novella has been adapted to various media over the decades, including stage, screen and operatic works.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote The Little Prince in the United States, while renting The Bevin House in Asharoken, New York, on Long Island. Most versions of the novella include a number of illustrations drawn by Saint-Exupéry himself.

Though ostensibly a children's book, The Little Prince makes several profound and idealistic observations about life and human nature. For example, Saint-Exupéry tells of a fox meeting the young prince as he exits the Sahara desert. The story's essence is contained in the lines uttered by the fox to the little prince: "On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." ("It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.") Other key thematic messages are articulated by the fox, such as: "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed" and "It is the time you have spent with your rose that makes your rose so important."

The narrator's point of view is interleaved in the first nine chapters and changes from third person to first person. In the first eight days of the narrator being stranded in the desert, the prince has been telling these stories to the narrator.

The prince asks the narrator to draw a sheep. Not knowing how to draw a sheep, the narrator shows the prince a picture that he had previously drawn; a boa with an elephant in its stomach, a drawing which previous viewers mistook for a hat. "No! No!", exclaims the prince. "I don't want a boa constrictor from the inside or outside. I want a sheep!...". He tries a few sheep drawings, which the prince rejects. Finally he draws a box, which he explains has the sheep inside. The prince, who can see the sheep inside the box just as well as he can see the elephant in the boa, says "That's perfect".

The home asteroid or "planet" of the little prince is introduced. His asteroid (planet) is house-sized and named B612, which has three volcanoes (two active, and one dormant) and a rose among various other objects. The actual naming of the asteroid B612 is an important concept in the book that illustrates the fact that adults will only believe a scientist who is dressed or acts the same way as they do. According to the book, the asteroid was sighted by a Turkish astronomer in 1909 who had then made a formal demonstration of asteroid B612 to the International Astronomical Congress. "No one had believed him on the count of the way he was dressed." Then, he and his people dressed like Europeans and went again to present asteroid B612 to the International Astronomical Congress and they fully believed him and this time credited him with the work.

The prince spends his days caring for his "planet", pulling out the baobab trees that are constantly trying to take root there. The trees will make his little planet turn to dust if they are not removed. Throughout the book he is taught to be patient and to do hard work to keep his "planet" in order. The prince falls in love with a rose that takes root in his planet, who returns his love but is unable to express it due to her own pettiness. He leaves to see what the rest of the universe is like, and visits six other asteroids (numbered from 325 to 330) each of which is inhabited by an adult who is foolish in his own way:

• The King who can apparently "control" the stars but only by ordering them to do what they would do anyway. He then relates this to his human subjects; it is the citizens' duty to obey, but only if the king's demands are reasonable. He orders the prince to leave as his ambassador.
• The Conceited Man who wants to be admired by everyone, but lives alone on his planet. He cannot hear anything that is not a compliment.
• The Drunkard/Tippler who drinks to forget that he is ashamed of drinking.