The Little Prince - Novella's Creation

Novella's Creation

Upon the outbreak of World War II, Saint-Exupéry, a successful pioneering aviator prior to the war, initially flew with a reconnaissance squadron in the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force). After France's defeat in 1940 and its armistice with Germany, he and his wife Consuelo fled occupied France and sojourned in North America, with Saint-Exupéry first arriving by himself at the very end of December 1940. His intention for the visit was to convince the United States to quickly enter the war against Germany and the Axis forces.

Between January 1941 and April 1943 the Saint-Exupérys lived in two penthouse apartments on Central Park South, then the Bevin House mansion in Asharoken, Long Island, N.Y., and still later at a rented house on Beekman Place in New York City. During his stay on Long Island, Saint-Exupéry would meet Land Morrow Lindbergh, the young, golden-haired son of the pioneering American aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow. The couple also stayed in Quebec, Canada for five weeks during the late spring of 1942, where they met a precocious eight-year-old boy with blond curly hair, Thomas, the son of philosopher Charles De Koninck with whom the Saint-Exupéry's resided.

After returning to the United States from his Quebec speaking tour, Saint-Exupéry was pressed to work on a children's book by Elizabeth Reynal, one of the wives of his U.S. publisher, Reynal & Hitchcock. The French wife of Eugene Reynal had closely observed Saint-Exupéry for several months, and noting his high stress levels and ill health, suggested to him that working on a children's story would help. The author wrote and illustrated The Little Prince in New York City and Asharoken in mid-to-late 1942, with the manuscript being completed in October.

Although the book was started in his Central Park South penthouse, Saint-Exupéry soon found New York City's noise and sweltering summer heat too uncomfortable to work in, so Consuelo was dispatched to find improved accommodations. The result was a new home: the Bevin House, a 22 room mansion in Asharoken overlooking Long Island Sound. The author-aviator initially complained "I wanted a hut the Palace of Versailles"; however as the weeks wore on and the author became invested in the project, the home would become "....a haven for writing, the best place I have ever had anywhere in my life". He devoted himself to the book on both extended daytime and midnight shifts, fueled by helpings of scrambled eggs on English muffins, gin and tonics, Coke-Colas, cigarettes and numerous reviews by friends and expatriates who dropped in to see on their famous countryman. Included among the reviewers was Consuelo's Swiss writer paramour Denis de Rougemont, who also modeled for a painting of the Little Prince lying on his stomach, feet and arms extended up in the air. De Rougemont would later help Consuelo write her autobiography, The Tale of the Rose, as well as write his own biography of Saint-Exupéry.

The large white Second French Empire style mansion, hidden behind tall trees, afforded the writer a multitude of work environments. It allowed him to alternately work on his writings, and then on his sketches and watercolours for hours at a time, moving his armchair and paint easel from the library towards the parlor one room at a time in order to follow the Sun's light. His meditative view of the sunsets at the Bevin House eventually became part of the gist of The Little Prince, in which 43 daily sunsets would be discussed. "On your planet..." the story told, "...all you need do is move your chair a few steps."

Only weeks after his novella was first published in April 1943, before Saint-Exupéry had received any of its royalties (he never would), the author-aviator joined the Free French Forces. He would remain immensely proud of The Little Prince, and almost always kept a personal copy with him which he often read to others during the war. As part of a 32 ship military convoy he voyaged to North Africa where he rejoined his old squadron to fight with the Allies, resuming his work as a reconnaissance pilot. Saint-Exupéry was lost in action in a July 1944 spy mission from the moonscapes of Corsica to the continent in preparation for the Allied invasion of occupied France, some three weeks before the liberation of Paris.

Further information: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry –Disappearance