Beloved Classic Novel “The Little Prince” Turns 75 Years Old

Though reviewers were initially confused about who, exactly, French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s had written The Little Prince for, readers of all ages embraced the young boy from Asteroid B-612 when it hit stores 75 years ago this week. The highly imaginative novella about a young, intergalactic traveler, spent two weeks on The New York Times’ best-seller list and went through at least three printings by December of that year. Though it only arrived in France after World War II, The Little Prince made it to Poland, Germany and Italy before the decade was up. Soon, the prince traveled to other media; audiobook vinyls debuted as early as 1954, which progressed to radio and stage plays, and eventually a 1974 film starring Bob Fosse and Gene Wilder. Since then there have been sequels (one by Saint-Exupery’s niece), a theme park in South Korea, a museum in Japan, a French boutique with branded Little Prince merchandise, another film adaptation, and most recently, a translation in the Arabic dialect known as Hassānīya, making the book one of the most widely translated work of all-time.
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