Manuscript

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry submitted The Little Prince for publication as a manuscript which included his handwritten text full of scratchings and replaced paragraphs as well as the original artwork that would be included in the finished book. This manuscript, which is mainly conserved at the Morgan Library & Museum, is a great example of the pairing down and editing process that goes into creating an edition. For example, the manuscript shows that one of The Little Prince‘s famous lines “On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux”(“One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye”) was reworked over 15 times. In addition, it contains drawings that were not included in the final edition. Any drawing that contained the pilot, such as the following, was eliminated from the final edition.