The Little Prince, first published in 1943, is a novella and the most famous work of the French aristocrat writer, poet and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944).
The novella is both the most read and most translated book in the French language, and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France, maintaining sales of over one million copies per year worldwide. Translated into more than 250 languages and dialects, with sales totaling more than 200 million copies, it has become one of the best-selling books ever published.
An earlier memoir by the author recounted his aviation experiences in the Sahara desert. He is thought to have drawn on those same experiences for use as plot elements in The Little Prince. The novella has been adapted to various media over the decades, including audio recordings, stage, screen, ballet and operatic works.
Though ostensibly a children’s book, The Little Prince makes several profound and idealistic observations about life and human nature. For example, Saint-Exupéry tells of a fox meeting the young prince during his travels on Earth. The story’s essence is contained in the lines uttered by the fox to the little prince: “One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” Other key thematic messages are articulated by the fox, such as: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed” and “It is the time you have devoted to your rose that makes your rose so important.”
All of the novella’s simple but elegant watercolour illustrations, which were integral to the story, were painted by Saint-Exupéry.
Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic bear created by A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Milne also included a poem about the bear in the children’s verse book When We Were Very Young (1924) and many more in Now We Are Six (1927). All four volumes were illustrated by E. H. Shepard.
The hyphens in the character’s name were later dropped when The Walt Disney Company adapted the Pooh stories into a series of Disney features that became one of its most successful franchises.
Milne named the character Winnie-the-Pooh after a teddy bear owned by his son, Christopher Robin Milne, who was the basis for the character Christopher Robin. Christopher’s toys also lent their names to most of the other characters, except for Owl and Rabbit, as well as the Gopher character, who was added in the Disney version.
The Winnie-the-Pooh stories are set in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, England. The forest is a large area of tranquil open heathland on the highest sandy ridges of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty situated 30 miles (50 km) south of London.
Many locations in the stories can be linked to real places in and around the forest. As Christopher Milne wrote in his autobiography: “Pooh’s forest and Ashdown Forest are identical”. The landscapes depicted in E.H. Shepard’s illustrations for the Winnie-the-Pooh books are directly inspired by the distinctive landscape of Ashdown Forest, with its high, open heathlands of heather, gorse, bracken and silver birch punctuated by hilltop clumps of pine trees.
The first collection of Pooh stories appeared in the book Winnie-the-Pooh. The Evening News Christmas story reappeared as the first chapter of the book, and at the very beginning it explained that Pooh was in fact Christopher Robin’s Edward Bear, who had simply been renamed by the boy. The book was published in October 1926 by the publisher of Milne’s earlier children’s work, Methuen, in England, and E. P. Dutton in the United States.
Since 1966, Disney has released numerous animated productions starring Winnie the Pooh and related characters. These have included theatrical featurettes, television series, and direct-to-video films, as well as the theatrical feature-length films The Tigger Movie, Piglet’s Big Movie, Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, and Winnie the Pooh.
Winnie the Pooh has inspired multiple texts to explain complex philosophical ideas. Pooh has also left a legacy in popular culture.