First edition in EnglishOriginal title
Le petit prince
First publication
1934
First translation into English
1943
Literature form
Novella
Genres
Fantasy, children's
Writing language
French
Author's country
France
Length
Approx. 15,500 words
The Little Prince
THE NOVELLA | THE TEXT | TRANSLATIONS
Notable lines and passages
First lines
Once when I was six years old I saw a beautiful picture in a book about the primeval forest called True Stories. It showed a boa constrictor swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.
Passages
Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
Only the man in charge of the single lamp at the North Pole and his colleague responsible for the single lamp at the South Pole could enjoy a carefree life of laziness: they only worked twice a year.
I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.
"You shall have your sunset. I shall command it. But I shall wait, according to my science of government, until conditions are favorable."
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"I must endure the presence of two or three caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies."
To conceited men, all other men are admirers.
I felt his heart beating like the heart of a dying bird, shot with someone’s rifle....
Last lines
For we must end on the road to that mystery where courage, death, and the dream of love give promise to sleep.
THE NOVELLA | THE TEXT | TRANSLATIONS
