The Little Prince

 

3 

 

 

To Leon Werth 

　

I ask the indulgence of the children who may read this 

book for dedicating it to a grown-up.  I have a serious 

reason: he is the best friend I have in the world. I have 

another reason: this grown-up understands everything, 

even books about children. I have a third reason: he lives 

in France where he is hungry and cold. He needs cheering 

up. If all these reasons are not enough, I will dedicate the 

book to the child from whom this grown-up grew. All 

grown-ups were once children-- although few of them 

remember it. And so I correct my dedication:  

　

To Leon Werth

　

when he was a little boy

　

---

 

4

 

 Chapter 1   

 we are introduced to the narrator, a pilot, and his 

ideas about grown-ups 

 

Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called 

True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa 

constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.   

In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing 

it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months 

that they need for digestion."   

I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some 

work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing 

Number One. It looked like this:   

 

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the 

drawing frightened them.   

But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?"   

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor 

digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, 

I made another drawing: I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the 

grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My 

Drawing Number Two looked like this:   

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5

 

The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my 

drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and 

devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is 

why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as 

a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One 

and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by 

themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining 

things to them.   

So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown 

a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very 

useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost 

in the night, such knowledge is valuable.   

In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many 

people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a 

great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And 

that hasn't much improved my opinion of them.   

Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the 

experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always 

kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, 

whoever it was, he, or she, would always say:   

"That is a hat."   

Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval 

forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him 

about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be 

greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man. 

  

　

---

 

6

Chapter 2   

 the narrator crashes in the desert and makes the 

acquaintance of the little prince 

 

 

So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to, until I had an 

accident with my plane in the Desert of Sahara, six years ago. Something 

was broken in my engine. And as I had with me neither a mechanic nor any 

passengers, I set myself to attempt the difficult repairs all alone. It was a 

question of life or death for me: I had scarcely enough drinking water to last a 

week.   

The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand, a thousand miles from any 

human habitation. I was more isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in 

the middle of the ocean. Thus you can imagine my amazement, at sunrise, 

when I was awakened by an odd little voice. It said:   

"If you please-- draw me a sheep!"   

"What!"   

"Draw me a sheep!"   

I jumped to my feet, completely thunderstruck. I blinked my eyes hard. I 

looked carefully all around me. And I saw a most extraordinary small person, 

who stood there examining me with great seriousness. Here you may see the 

best potrait that, later, I was able to make of him. But my drawing is certainly 

very much less charming than its model.   

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7

 

That, however, is not my fault. The grown-ups discouraged me in my painter's 

career when I was six years old, and I never learned to draw anything, except 

boas from the outside and boas from the inside. 

Now I stared at this sudden apparition with my eyes fairly starting out of my 

head in astonishment. Remember, I had crashed in the desert a thousand 

miles from any inhabited region. And yet my little man seemed neither to be 

straying uncertainly among the sands, nor to be fainting from fatigue or 

hunger or thirst or fear. Nothing about him gave any suggestion of a child lost 

in the middle of the desert, a thousand miles from any human habitation. 

When at last I was able to speak, I said to him:   

"But-- what are you doing here?"   

And in answer he repeated, very slowly, as if he were speaking of a matter of 

great consequence: "If you please-- draw me a sheep..."   

When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey. Absurd as it 

might seem to me, a thousand miles from any human habitation and in 

danger of death, I took out of my pocket a sheet of paper and my fountain-pen. 

But then I remembered how my studies had been concentrated on geography, 

history, arithmetic, and grammar, and I told the little chap (a little crossly, too) 

that I did not know how to draw. He answered me:   

"That doesn't matter. Draw me a sheep..."   

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