Le Petit Prince

Published in 1943 by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It started with a young boy that draws pictures with his imagination. He shows them to the adults but they spurn them and the boy decided to abandon the drawings and grow up. He decided to become a pilot and eventually crashed into the Sahara desert and met a Prince.

The prince asked him to draw a sheep and not knowing how to draw a sheep, he showed the prince a drawing he drew previously, a snake with an elephant in its stomach. The prince recognizes the drawing and able to tell that it is not a sheep. The boy tried many times and at the end, he drew a box and explains the sheep is inside the box. The prince says "That's perfect!"

The prince is from the a planet named B-612 with the size of a house which has three volcanoes and a rose among various other objects. The prince spends his days caring his little planet by constantly removing Boaboa tree roots that will destroy his planet. The prince fell in love with a rose that grew in his planet. It appears to not return his love due to her vain nature. Soon, he left to see what the rest of the universe is like and visited six other planets numbered 325-330. Each of the planets inhabited by an adult. 

First was the King. He could 'control' the stars but only ordering them to do what they would do anyway. He relates this to his citizens, it is the citizens' duty to obey but if only the demands are reasonable. He ordered the prince to leave as his ambassador. 

Next was the Conceited Man. He wants to be admired by everyone but lives alone on his planet. He couldn't hear anything that is not a compliment.

The third is a Drunkard. He drinks to forget that he is ashamed for drinking.

Then came along the Businessman, who is constantly busy counting the stars he thinks he owns. He wishes to use them to buy more stars. The prince then goes on to claim his property. The prince owns the flower and volcanoes on his planet because he cares for them and they care for him, but because one cannot maintain the stars or be of use to them, the Businessman cannot own them.

Fourth planet is inhabited by the Lamplighter which the planet rotates once per minute. Long ago, he was assigned to light the lamp at night and extinguish it in the morning. At that time, the planet rotates at a reasonable rate and he was able to rest but the planet slowly speed up through time. The Lamplighter refuse to let go of his responsibility and he lights and extinguishes the lamp once a minute without any rest. The prince pities the Lamplighter as he is the only person he has met who cares about something other than himself. 

The Geographer stays in the first planet who spends all his time making maps and never leaves his desk to examine anywhere and thinks that it is a job of an explorer to investigate. The Geographer doubts all explorer's character and would disregard their reports. He does not trust the things he has not seen with his own eyes but yet will not leave his desk. He asked the prince to describe his planet. The prince told him about the volcanoes and the rose. The Geographer said "We do not record flowers because they are only ephemeral". The prince was hurt to learn that his rose will someday be gone. The Geographer then recommends the prince to visit Earth. 

So the seventh planet was the Earth. On the Earth, he started out in the desert and meets a snake that claims to have the power of sending anyone he wishes back to the land from whence he came. He asked the snake, "Where are the men? It is a little lonely in the desert". "It is also lonely among men", the snake replied him. The prince meets a desert-flower, who having seen a caravan pass by, tells him that there are only a handful of men on Earth and that they have no roots, which lets the wind blow them around making life hard on them.

The little prince climbs the highest mountain he has ever seen. From the top of the mountain, he hopes he will see the whole planet and find people, but he sees only a desolate landscape. When the prince calls out, his echo answers him, and he mistakes it for the voices of humans. He thinks Earth is unnecessarily sharp and hard, and he finds it odd that the people of Earth only repeat what he says to them.

Eventually, the prince comes upon a whole row of rosebushes, and is downcast because he thought that his rose was the only one in the whole universe. He begins to feel that he is not a great prince at all, as his planet contains only three tiny volcanoes and a flower he now thinks of as common. He lies down in the grass and weeps.

The prince then meets and tames a fox, who explains to the prince that his rose is unique and special, because she is the one whom he loves. The fox bid farewell and told the prince his secret. "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

The prince then meets a railway switchman and a merchant. The switchman tells the prince how passengers constantly rush from one place to another aboard trains, never satisfied with where they are and not knowing what they are after, only the children amongst them bothering to look out of the windows. The merchant tells the prince about his product, a pill which eliminates thirst and is therefore very popular, saving people fifty-three minutes a week; the prince replied that he would use the time to walk and find fresh water.

At the end, the pilot is dying of thirst in the desert but he and the prince found a well. After some thought, the prince bids an emotional farewell to the pilot. Explaining to him that while it will look as though he has died, he has not, but rather that his body is too heavy to take with him to his planet. He tells the pilot that it was wrong of the pilot to come and watch, as it will make him sad. The prince allows the snake to bite him and the next morning, when the pilot went looking for the prince, he finds the prince's body has disappeared.