The Little Prince
New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1943.
First edition, limited issue. Number 326 of 525 copies signed by Antoine de Saint-Exupery on the limitation page tipped in at front. 94 pp. Bound in publisher's salmon cloth stamped in maroon. Near Fine with light wear to extremities, very slight intermittent dampstaining to lower edges of boards and textblock with concurrent ripple to textblock. Light offsetting from jacket to endpapers, evidence of bookplate removal to front free endpaper, small stain to back pastedown. In a Very Good+ price-clipped dust jacket with matching limitation number inked to foot of spine, Fourth Avenue address listed on front flap; staining to front panel and light wear, toning, and soiling.
The French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery left his homeland after it surrendered to Germany in 1940. He arrived in New York with the intention of persuading Americans to join in the fight and supported himself with writing for the next two years. When Eugene and Elizabeth Reynal noticed the skill of his little sketches, they proposed a children's book for his next project. Saint-Exupery's whimsical tale for children, suffused with the anguish of an adult, became a global classic and one of the bestselling books of all time.
Signed copies are scarce, since the author left to join the Free French Air Force in Algeria in April 1943, the month The Little Prince was published. He disappeared on a reconnaissance mission in July 1944. Saint-Exupery's body was never recovered, but in 1998 a French fisherman found a silver identity bracelet that bore the names of the dead man, his publishers, and his wife, Consuelo — the rose that appears in this sad story.
Price: $48,000