It’s historic. The original manuscript of Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, never shown to the French public, will cross the Atlantic this week, to be exhibited in Paris next month in Paris.
The aviator writer was in exile. The manuscript, an allegorical story that recounts the interplanetary journey of a young boy with naive appearances, 1000 miles from any inhabited earth, had never left the United States since.
Before leaving to fight from North Africa in the spring of 1943, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry had entrusted it to a friend, Silvia Hamilton, who sold it in 1968 to the Morgan Library & Museum. It is this private institution that will lend the original manuscript to the Museum of Decorative Arts, which hosts the exhibition. Meet the Little Prince from February 17 to June 26 in its wing of the Louvre Palace.
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It is also the first time that a major museum exhibition in France has been devoted to Little Prince, this masterpiece of literature. The little Prince has been translated into more than 300 languages, it remains one of the most widely read works in the world following the Bible.
Mysteriously disappeared in the Mediterranean, on July 31, 1944, aboard his Lightning P38, during a reconnaissance mission, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry will never know anything regarding the planetary success of the Little Prince.
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In 2014, the manuscript had already been exhibited to the New York public. Originally over 30,000 words, difficult to decipher, it was cut in half by a writer who was looking for the greatest simplicity of style possible. His worldwide success also owes a lot to the watercolors which illustrate him and which have engraved the image of the young character in the collective memory.
In all, nearly 600 pieces including many watercolours, sketches, drawings and correspondence, mostly unpublished, will celebrate the multiple facets and protean talent of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, writer, poet, aviator, explorer, journalist, philosopher, carried all his life by a humanist ideal, the real driving force behind his work.
