Le petit prince survolant une planète avec montagnes et fleuve Drawing

The Morgan holds the original manuscript and art for one of the world's most widely read and cherished books, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince (1943). In 1942, at the height of the Second World War, Saint-Exupéry crafted a tale about an interstellar traveler in search of friendship and understanding. The manuscript of The Little Prince is an extraordinary physical record of the author's creative labor. Saint-Exupéry often wrote late into the night, a cigarette in his mouth and a cup of coffee or tea on hand. He thrived on the responses of those he trusted, thinking nothing of calling a friend at two in the morning to read a few pages aloud. Saint-Exupéry generally produced multiple drafts of a single chapter, refining dialogue, wording, and tone. But he also deleted entire passages and episodes, paring the text to its essential elements. He made further revisions, not represented in the Morgan drafts, before submitting the text to his publisher. Saint-Exupéry wrote much of The Little Prince in a house that he and his wife, Consuelo, had rented on the north shore of Long Island during summer 1942. But he also spent many hours writing at the Upper East Side apartment of his friend and lover Silvia Hamilton (later Reinhardt), with her black poodle as a model for the sheep and a mop-top doll standing in for the title character. As he prepared to leave the city to return to wartime service, Saint-Exupéry appeared at Hamilton's door wearing an ill-fitting military uniform. She later recalled that he said, "I'd like to give you something splendid but this is all I have." He tossed a rumpled paper bag on her entryway table; inside were the manuscript and drawings for The Little Prince.