The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is one of the most popular children's books ever written, a French literary classic. An exhibition opening today at at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York aims to reveal the extent of The Little Prince's roots there, making the claim that it's an important part of American literary heritage, too.
They do have grounds. Saint-Exupéry, a French Second World War pilot, moved to live in New York in 1940. Though the book was originally written in French and set in part on a variety of fantastical planets, the exhibition uses photographs of Saint-Exupéry's American home alongside 25 original handwritten manuscripts and pieces of watercolour artwork, to show that New York was the place where Saint-Exupéry lived and wrote – and so it was crucial to the fabric of the finished book.
Saint-Exupéry returned to his squadron in 1943, the year he finished writing and published The Little Prince. He was shot down and presumed killed in 1944, at the age of 44. The wreckage of the plane was not discovered until 60 years later, in 2003, seven years after a silver identity bracelet bearing his name was found off the coast of Marseille.
Charlotte Runcie writing in The Telegraph
Val says We have an interesting story about this book, if you remember we were rare booksellers. We had a scarce first edition when we first came here to France and after a night eating and drinking with friends, one friend asked if he could read from the book. The reading was lovely ... till the friend dropped the book on the floor splitting the very delicate book wrapper along the spine causing about 1,000 pounds worth of damage! After that lesson learnt, we never let guests handle our stock, as you can imagine.
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