The Little Prince - Literary Translations

Literary Translations

Katherine Woods (1886–1968) wrote the classic English translation of 1943 which was later joined by other English translations. Her original version contained some errors. As of 2012, five such additional translations have been published:

• T.V.F. Cuffe, (ISBN 0-14-118562-7, 1st ed. 1995)
• Irene Testot-Ferry, (ISBN 0-7567-5189-6, 1st ed. 1995)
• Alan Wakeman, (ISBN 1-86205-066-X, 1st ed. 1995)
• Richard Howard, (ISBN 0-15-204804-9, 1st ed. 2000)
• David Wilkinson, (ISBN 0-9567215-9-1, 1st ed. 2011)

Each of these translators approaches the essence of the original, each with their own style and focus.

Le Petit Prince is often used as a beginner's book for French language students. As of 2005 it has been translated into over 250 languages and dialects, including the Congolese language Alur and Sardinian. The book is one of the few modern books to have been translated into Latin, as Regulus vel Pueri Soli Sapiunt.

In 2005, the book was also translated into Toba, an indigenous language of northern Argentina, as So Shiyaxauolec Nta'a. It was the first book translated into this language since the New Testament of the Bible. Anthropologist Florence Tola commenting on the suitability of the work for Toban translation said there is "nothing strange the Little Prince speaks with a snake or a fox and travels among the stars, it fits perfectly into the Toba mythology."

Linguists have compared the many translations and even editions of the same translation for style, composition, titles, wordings and genealogy. As an example as of 2011 there are approximately 47 translated editions of The Little Prince in Korean, and there are also about 50 different translated editions in Chinese (produced in both mainland China and in Taiwan). Many of them are titled Prince From a Star, while others carry the book title that is a direct translation of The Little Prince. By studying the use of word phrasings, nouns and other content in such translations, linguists can identify the source material for each as to whether it was derived from the original French manuscript or from its first English translation by Katherine Woods, or from a number of adapted sources.

The first edition to be published in France, Saint-Exupéry's birthplace, would not be printed by his French publisher Gallimard, until after the Second World War, as the author's blunt views within his eloquent writings were soon banned by the German's Nazi appeasers in Vichy France. Prior to France's liberation new printings of Saint-Exupéry's works were made available only by means of secret print runs, such as that of February 1943 when 1,000 copies of an underground version of his best seller Pilote de guerre, describing the German invasion of France, were covertly printed in Lyon.