Where to Start with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry — whether to begin with The Little Prince, Night Flight, or Wind, Sand and Stars. A complete reading guide.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) was the French writer, poet, and aviator who wrote The Little Prince (1943) — one of the most translated books in the world, the best-selling French-language novel ever published, and a work that has been read as a children’s book, a philosophical fable, a meditation on grief and loss (Saint-Exupéry wrote it in New York exile, estranged from his wife, separated from a France under occupation), and an autobiography of the soul. He also wrote Night Flight (1931), Wind, Sand and Stars (1939), and Southern Mail (1929) — all drawing on his years as a pioneer airmail pilot in South America and North Africa. He disappeared on a reconnaissance mission in 1944, presumed shot down over the Mediterranean; his aircraft was found in 2000.
Where to Start: The Little Prince (1943)
The essential Saint-Exupéry — and one of the most beloved books ever written. A pilot has made a forced landing in the Sahara Desert. He has only enough water for a week. On the first night he is woken by a small, very serious voice: a child, asking him to draw a sheep.
The child is the Little Prince, from Asteroid B-612. He has come from his asteroid because he had a dispute with a rose — a rose who is beautiful and vain and who told him she loved him but was, in the ways that matter to roses, demanding — and he has been travelling the planets since, meeting a king, a vain man, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter, and a geographer, each absorbed in adult absurdities.
On Earth he meets a fox, who teaches him the most important thing in the book: that to tame something — to establish ties — is to make yourself responsible for it forever. You become responsible for your rose. The things that matter are invisible to the eyes.
Saint-Exupéry wrote the book in New York in 1942 and drew the watercolour illustrations himself. It is a very short book that takes perhaps ninety minutes to read and remains with the reader for life.
Wind, Sand and Stars (1939)
Saint-Exupéry’s autobiographical masterpiece — the years of flying mail routes over the Sahara and the Andes, the forced landings, the near-deaths, the meditations on what solitude and danger reveal about human meaning. His finest prose work alongside The Little Prince.
Night Flight (1931)
Saint-Exupéry’s breakthrough novel — the airmail director Rivière driving his pilots to conquer the night. Short, taut, and morally demanding; his most novelistic work.
Southern Mail (1929)
Saint-Exupéry’s first novel — the earliest version of his themes and settings. More apprentice work than the later books; for devoted readers who want to complete his fiction.
Reading Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Begin with The Little Prince — it is short, essential, and like nothing else in literature. Read Wind, Sand and Stars as a companion piece; they illuminate each other. Night Flight is the best of his fiction after The Little Prince.
For the full Antoine de Saint-Exupéry bibliography, reviews, and biography, visit the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry author page on Editors Reads.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry?
The Little Prince (1943) is the essential starting point — Saint-Exupéry's fable about a pilot stranded in the Sahara who meets a small prince from an asteroid, and their conversations about love, loneliness, and what matters in a life. It is one of the most translated books in the world, written ostensibly for children but addressed as much to the adults who have forgotten how to see clearly. It can be read in under two hours and contains more wisdom per page than almost any book of its length.
What is Night Flight about?
Night Flight (Vol de nuit, 1931) is Saint-Exupéry's breakthrough novel — following the director of a South American airmail service, Rivière, who drives his pilots to fly dangerous night routes because he believes the conquest of fear and darkness has a value beyond mere commercial efficiency. The novel is short, taut, and deeply concerned with the question of whether the demands a cause places on individuals can ever be justified by the cause itself. Won the Prix Femina.
What is Wind, Sand and Stars about?
Wind, Sand and Stars (Terre des hommes, 1939) is Saint-Exupéry's autobiographical account of his years as a mail pilot — including his forced landings in the Libyan desert, his near-death from dehydration, and his meditations on what flying and solitude reveal about the human condition. Won the Grand Prix du Roman of the Académie Française and the U.S. National Book Award. For many readers it is his finest work alongside The Little Prince.
In what order should I read Saint-Exupéry?
The Little Prince is the essential Exupéry and the right place to begin. If you want to read more, Wind, Sand and Stars is the best follow-up — it is autobiographical where The Little Prince is fable, and the two books illuminate each other. Night Flight is shorter and can be read before or after Wind, Sand and Stars. Southern Mail is his earliest novel and more apprentice work; best left until after the major books.
