Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote “The Little Prince” not in France, but in New York, where the book was first published in both English and French in 1943.
That American chapter of the French aviator and author’s life is the subject of “Saint-Exupéry and the Americas,” a lecture Wednesday, Oct. 7, at the Coral Gables Museum.
Thierry Chaunu, president of the American Society of Le Souvenir Français, will lead the presentation. The lecture is scheduled from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the museum, 285 Aragon Ave., and will be delivered in English. A question-and-answer session and cocktail reception will follow, with wine and a buffet from La Croquantine.
Saint-Exupéry in New York
Saint-Exupéry arrived in New York in January 1941 after France signed an armistice with Germany. What began as a wartime stay would last more than two years and produce some of his most important writing.
He lived first in Manhattan and later spent time with his wife, Consuelo, at the Bevin House, a Victorian home in Asharoken on Long Island’s north shore.
“The Little Prince” emerged during that period.
The Morgan Library & Museum in New York, which holds the original manuscript and drawings, traces the book’s beginnings to Saint-Exupéry’s return to the city in June 1942. Elizabeth Reynal, whose husband was a partner in Saint-Exupéry’s American publishing house, encouraged him to write the story.
With New York sweltering that summer, Saint-Exupéry and his wife moved to Long Island, where he wrote much of the book. He also worked on it in Manhattan.
Unlike his earlier books, which were illustrated by others, Saint-Exupéry drew the pictures for “The Little Prince” himself. The Morgan holds 175 manuscript leaves and drawings, including a preliminary draft of roughly 140 pages.
The pages show a book still taking shape, with passages revised or discarded and drawings altered before publication.
An American first edition
Saint-Exupéry completed the manuscript in late 1942. Reynal & Hitchcock published “The Little Prince” in New York in April 1943, issuing English and French editions at the same time.
The publishing house had already introduced American readers to Saint-Exupéry through books including “Wind, Sand and Stars,” published in English in 1939. “The Little Prince” was the only one of his works Reynal & Hitchcock published in the original French.
Saint-Exupéry left the United States as the book was going into production. He returned to military flying and joined his former reconnaissance squadron in North Africa.
On July 31, 1944, he took off from Corsica on a reconnaissance mission over southern France and disappeared. He was 44.
He never saw “The Little Prince” published in France.
The book went on to become his most famous work, following a stranded aviator’s encounter with a young prince who has traveled from his tiny asteroid to other worlds and eventually to Earth. Its spare story, illustrations and reflections on friendship, responsibility and loss have carried it far beyond its original audience as a children’s book.
The Americas beyond New York
Chaunu’s lecture will place those New York years within Saint-Exupéry’s broader connections to the Americas.
Before World War II, Saint-Exupéry flew mail routes across Europe, Africa and South America, experiences that supplied material for his writing and helped establish his reputation as both aviator and author.
The Coral Gables program will examine those connections while returning to the American origins of the work for which he is best remembered.
Chaunu, who was born in Paris, has served since 2020 as president of the American Society of Le Souvenir Français, a New York-based nonprofit founded in 1993. The organization works to preserve the memory of French military personnel buried in the United States and to honor French citizens with significant ties to the country.
Saint-Exupéry’s place in that shared history is unusually tangible.
More than eight decades after he wrote “The Little Prince,” the manuscript and original drawings remain in New York — in the city where one of France’s best-known books was created and first published.
Tickets are $10 to $20. The program is organized by Alliance Française Miami Metro, the local chapter of the international French-language and cultural organization.
