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

Ex Carta

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.

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.

Illustration of the little prince cleaning his two small active volcanoes, before leaving his planet to heat up his meals.