The Little Prince

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
This page needs some cleaning up to be presentable.

Multiple versions or instalments of this work have been lumped into this page. Multiple Works Need Separate Pages, and this page needs to be turned into either a franchise page or a disambiguation page.

"Once upon a time there was a little prince who lived on a planet that was scarcely bigger than himself, and who had need of a sheep."

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

A worldwide literary classic (it's been translated into 190 languages), The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince in French) is a 1943 children's book written by French aviator and count Antoine De Saint Exupery. It is the fictional account of a French aviator whose plane crashes in the Sahara desert, a thousand miles from civilization. He is approached by a young prince who requests that he draw him a sheep, which leads into the prince describing to the narrator his life on an asteroid and his travels from planet to planet in search of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. While the book was written for children, the philosophical content appeals to any adult reader, as during the prince's adventures he encounters analogues of many of the traits of modern humanity, and learns about love and friendship from the plants and animals he meets.

Adaptations have mostly been for the stage, but there's also a 1974 movie musical and a 1979 Claymation short. It also inspired an anime. There is also a new CGI cartoon, airing on French TV, called The New Adventures of the Little Prince.

The book was adapted into a full-length animated movie in 2015. On an interesting note, the concept art was done by Thurop van Orman, the director of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.

The story is in the public domain, and can be read in its entirety here.

Not in any way a Spear Counterpart to A Little Princess.

Tropes used in The Little Prince include:

The New Adventures of the Little Prince contains examples of:

  • An Aesop: Because children are a part of its target audience.
  • A Boy and His X: A Boy and His Fox.
  • Lethal Lava Land: The Planet of the Firebird becomes this after said bird goes on a rampage.
  • Planet of Hats: Planet of Wind, Planet of Music, etc.
  • Time Master: The Planet of Time has The Clockmaker, who governs all the clocks on the planet, and with them, has some control over time.
  • Time Stands Still: On The Planet of Time, each town's time is self-contained and is controlled by the town's clock. Stopping that clock leaves its inhabitants frozen in time.
  • Wind Turbine Power: The inhabitants of The Planet of Wind have based their entire society on wind. Most of their devices are powered by wind.