Name: The World of Le Petit Prince
Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

First edition, first impressions, #151, signed by the author. 

Although the book contains no conventional map, cartographic imagery runs throughout the tale. The Little Prince travels from planet to planet, each rendered by Saint-Exupéry’s own whimsical sketches, creating a cosmic atlas of miniature worlds. In satirising the ‘geographer’ who prizes scientific accuracy above lived reality, the book transforms the very idea of mapping into a poetic allegory of exploration, imagination, and loss.

Ex Carta

Saint-Exupéry’s little prince travels between planets too small for maps, yet the book’s frontispiece chart of stars suggests a child’s cosmic itinerary.

Written in exile in the United States during the Second World War, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince has become one of the world’s most translated and best-loved books. Published in French and English in New York in April 1943, it combines childlike wonder with philosophical depth. Signed copies are exceptionally rare, as Saint-Exupéry died the following year during a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean.

Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) was a pioneering aviator and writer whose works, from Vol de nuit to Terre des hommes, fuse the experience of flight with humanist philosophy. Le Petit Prince remains his enduring masterpiece.