“IT IS ONLY WITH THE HEART THAT ONE CAN SEE RIGHTLY; WHAT IS ESSENTIAL IS INVISIBLE TO THE EYE”: FIRST EDITION OF SAINT-EXUPERY’S LE PETIT PRINCE

SAINT-EXUPERY, Antoine de. Le Petit Prince. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, (1943). Small quarto, original salmon cloth, original dust jacket. $12,500.

First edition in French of Saint-Exupery’s masterpiece, published the same year as the first in English.

"Figuratively speaking, the tale has something of Hans Christian Andersen in it, something of Lewis Carroll, and even, it may be perhaps said, a bit of John Bunyan. It is often lyrical… sometimes profound… However it is classified, The Little Prince has entered children's literature, in the manner of quite a few other such hard-to-define works in preceding centuries" (Pierpont Morgan 224). Le Petit Prince is "[a] gentle duet, [an] engaging exchange between two very different personalities who were, of course, both sides of Saint-Exupery: the disillusioned, skeptical and lonely pilot, and the innocent, otherworldly Little Prince" (Pearlman, 29). Published in salmon cloth and with no colophon on the final page. In first issue dust jacket, with publisher's Fourth Avenue address on front flap. See Pearlman, Firsts 13:8, 22-29.

Book with faint offsetting to endpapers, one small rub to front panel; scarce dust jacket with minor soiling, mostly to spine, and light wear to spine ends. A near-fine copy.