The Antoine De Saint-Exupery Collection (The Little Prince / Airman's Odyssey)

by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

An exclusive edition that brings together the legendary author's most celebrated work with Original Art by the author. Included are The Little Prince and Airman's Odyssey, a trilogy comprising Wind, Sand and Stars, Night Flight, and Flight To Arras. Tranlated from the French by Richard Howard.

Genres: Fiction, Childrens

437 pages, paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

People best know French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for his fairy tale The Little Prince (1943).

He flew for the first time at the age of 12 years in 1912 at the Ambérieu airfield and then determined to a pilot. Even after moving to a school in Switzerland and spending summer vacations at the château of the family at Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens in east, he kept that ambition. He repeatedly uses the house at Saint-Maurice.

Later, in Paris, he failed the entrance exams for the naval academy and instead enrolled at the prestigious l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1921, Saint-Exupéry, stationed in Strasbourg, began serving in the military. He learned and forever settled his career path as a pilot. After leaving the service in 1923, Saint-Exupéry worked in several professions but in 1926 went back and signed as a pilot for Aéropostale, a private airline that from Toulouse flew mail to Dakar, Senegal. In 1927, Saint-Exupéry accepted the position of airfield chief for Cape Juby in southern Morocco and began his first book, a memoir, called Southern Mail and published in 1929.

He then moved briefly to Buenos Aires to oversee the establishment of an Argentinean mail service, returned to Paris in 1931, and then published Night Flight , which won instant success and the prestigious Prix Femina. Always daring Saint-Exupéry tried from Paris in 1935 to break the speed record for flying to Saigon. Unfortunately, his plane crashed in the Libyan Desert, and he and his copilot trudged through the sand for three days to find help. In 1938, a second plane crash at that time, as he tried to fly between city of New York and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, seriously injured him. The crash resulted in a long convalescence in New York.

He published Wind, Sand and Stars , next novel, in 1939. This great success won the grand prize for novel of the academy and the national book award in the United States. Saint-Exupéry flew reconnaissance missions at the beginning of the Second World War but went to New York to ask the United States for help when the Germans occupied his country. He drew on his wartime experiences to publish Flight to Arras and Letter to a Hostage in 1942.

Later in 1943, Saint-Exupéry rejoined his air squadron in northern Africa. From earlier plane crashes, Saint-Exupéry still suffered physically, and people forbade him to fly, but he insisted on a mission. From Borgo, Corsica, on 31 July 1944, he set to overfly occupied region. He never returned.

Reviews

[Amy Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of Antoine De Saint-Exupery's most celebrated works, and opening with perhaps his most beloved, "The Little Prince", it's clear very quickly why his works are a cultural staple for France.

The Little Prince is one of those children's stories that is full of deep, deep truths about purpose, meaning, and how feelings can completely change the nature of things. The illustrations are both part of the narrative and visually charming, and the story is even better for them.

The rest of the books (Ariman's Oddessy- a trilogy and Flight to Arras) are most definitely written without children in mind, and though I can find and hear Saint-Exupery's voice and philosophy from The Little Prince shining through all of his books, the tone is monumentally different. All of the books reflect his experience of being a pilot, from his early career as a mail carrier, to a crash in the desert that nearly ended his life, to his experience being a fighter pilot in WWII.

I admit, these books are a difficult read. They're long, and wax philosophic with intense frequency. Early on, I considered stopping once or twice, but then some marvelous gem of a concept, idea, or image gleamed out and dazzled me, and then it was impossible to let go of a story so capable of shaking me and waking up my mind. It took genuine work to read these books. I had to pay attention, think hard, reread whole paragraphs, pages even, to sometimes track the manner in which the author's thoughts twisted and turned around, but the end result was rewarding.

I wouldn't recommend the adult novels to everyone. The books are marvelous, but again, arduous. Comparing the novels to The Little Prince is kind of like comparing LOTR to The Hobbit; if you want a story that gives you a taste of Saint-Exupery's brilliance with the comforting tone of a fairy tale, The Little Prince is an absolute treasure. If you want a greater challenge, absolutely go for the novels. My favorite among them was Wind, Sand, and Stars, written based on the real experience Saint-Exupery had of crashing alone in the desert.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

TLP is nothing short of magical in its warmth and enchantment, which is no small feat when you consider it is a fable of war – very closely echoing Wind, Sand and Stars, often presented as a children’s book. As the first in the Airman’s Odyssey trilogy, WSS is a truly insightful memoir illustrating the author's view of the world and his opinions of what makes life worth living, centred on his 1935 plane crash in the Sahara Desert between Benghazi and Cairo, which he barely survived along with his mechanic-navigator, André Prévot. It is crammed full of drama, life-affirming resolve, and level-headed anecdotes. The expressions on life and death are some of the most beautiful I have ever read. I devoured this with a hunger I rarely experience when reading non-fiction. NF is a well-constructed fictional story with characters inspired by people he knew in his time in South America. The pursuit of greatness in singularly focussing on duty over personal gain, gives the novel strong themes of sacrifice and camaraderie. FTA is a memoir?! This blew my mind whilst reading it. It is thoroughly engaging, and generally very amusing, whilst further exposing us to the stoicism and rational mindset of our pilot-poet-journalist-auteur. One thing that seemed out of kilter, is the last ‘few’ chapters being soul-searching, and prophetic, whilst trying to conclude the story being told. It comes across as incoherent, as opposed to concise and powerful. In conclusion: what a trilogy! Saint-Exupery writes with humility and honesty, showing himself enlightened and stoic, as well as being masterfully poetic, colourful, and refreshing in his use of language. Overall, this is an incredible collection, and one I’ll be sure to cherish and treasure in years to come

[Jeff Wong · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very thought provoking book. The Little Prince is an allegorical tale that provides a child-like perspective on what is really important in the world. The Airman's Odyssey contains three stories. The first (Wind, Sand, and Stars) is a narrative about the old airmail pilots in Saharan Africa and Southern Europe and the truly dangerous and existential existence they all lived in doing their jobs. Much of the adventure narrative is based in the the desert after a crash landing. The second (Night Flight) is a captivating and terrifying tale about the mail delivery in South America between Chile, Argentina, Brazil in poor weather. The last (Flight to Arras) is about a French Air Force pilot and his crew commanded to do a Flight in the setting of vastly superior air power in the Germany Air Force. In this narrative, there is a strong philosophical analysis about the horrors of war; the narrator asks (very reasonably) why to men fight in a war when there really is very little point to it. I enjoyed this collection of stories.

[Dayna Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of three novels by the author of The Little Prince. Wind, Sand, and Stars, the first of the three novels, recounts Saint-Exupery's work flying for an early airmail carrier. He takes us along on his flights over the African Sahara and the South American Andes. Night Flight, the second of the three novels, is the story of Fabien, a pilot for the Patagonia Mail. Even though a fierce storm is forecast, he is ordered out on his night flight. When contact with Fabien is lost, his boss, is left with nothing to do but try and figure out where his plane might have crashed and take the news to Fabien's waiting wife. Flight to Arras, the third of the three, is the story of the French Air Force squadron Saint-Exupery was a member of during WWII. A wonderful look at the dangers of flight in its infancy and the bravery of the men who flew those early planes.

[Missy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading The Little Prince Again. I had not known about the Airman's Odyssey and was excited to read that series. Sadly, I was as interested in the Airman's Odyssey as I was in Homer's Odyssey when I was 15yo. I just could not focus on it and enjoy myself, so I shelved it for another day. It was beautifully written from a place of passion- but not my place of passion.

If you know someone who loves airplanes and adventure, they might like it.

I have to say that I really enjoyed the forewords to the pieces. I had never read about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry before- what an amazing man who loved adventure!

[Atmo]

satire tentang kehidupan dalam kristalisasi impian yang paling mikro...maksudku paling sederhana

[Ida · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books!

[Beedo180 · Rating 5 out of 5]

His essential aviation reads collected together.