The Little Prince

A NEW TRANSLATION BY MICHAEL MORPURGO If a little fellow comes along, if he laughs, if he has golden hair, and if he never answers questions, then you will know who he is. He is the Little Prince, the mysterious, innocent and beautiful boy who appears to a pilot stranded in the desert and makes an extraordinary request. He has captured the hearts of millions of readers around the world since his story first appeared in 1943, written down by an aristocratic French aviator who soon after disappeared during a flight across the sea. The Little Prince journeys to our planet from his home among the stars, encountering all sorts of benighted grown-ups along the way, and a fox, who teaches him how to see the important things in life. But the Prince has left behind a flower growing on his star, a rose which is his treasure and his burden, and before long he must return to it. Master storyteller Michael Morpurgo, author of War Horse, has translated what is for him ‘one of the greatest stories ever written’ so that more English readers might discover the joy of reading this enchanting fable. The Little Prince is a story for everyone, for children and grown-up children, for kings, geographers and lamp-lighters, even for the very serious and the very wise.

Author Biography

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-ExupUry was born on 29 June 1900 in Lyon, France. He first flew in a plane when he was twelve years old, an experience which ignited a life-long love of aviation and adventure. After serving in the French air force, Saint-ExupUry joined a pioneering aviation company and helped to establish the first airmail routes over north Africa and South America, surviving numerous accidents and gaining the LUgion d’honneur for his service. His experiences inspired several books, including Night Flight (1931), and Wind, Sand and Stars (1939), which were awarded France’s highest literary awards. He wrote The Little Prince during a sojourn in the US, where it was first published in 1943, before he returned to France to fly military reconnaissance missions. On 31 July 1944, Saint-ExupUry took off from an air base in Corsica, but never returned. His disappearance remained the subject of speculation until 1998, when his identity bracelet was recovered from the sea off the coast of Marseille. Michael Morpurgo OBE is one of Britain’s best loved children’s authors. He was born in 1943 in St Albans and published his first book in 1975. Since then he has written over one hundred books, which have been translated into over twenty languages, and adapted for film and the stage, including the National Theatre’s hit production of War Horse. His books have won the Whitbread Award, the Smarties Book Prize, the Children’s Book Award and the Blue Peter Book Award as well as many others. Michael was Children’s Laureate from 2003-2005, and was awarded an OBE in 2006.