Its black cover, damaged by time, contains a treasure: the typescript of Little Princeby Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the only one to have belonged to the writer, is on sale by a London specialist bookstore during the Abu Dhabi Art Fair.
An object of inestimable value
Accompanied by its passport, issued by the French Ministry of Culture, the precious object will be sold during the Abu Dhabi Art Fair which opens on November 20. Its price? 1.25 million dollars or 1.14 million euros. It was acquired “earlier this year” by the bookstore specializing in rare books, Peter Harrington, for an undisclosed sum.
“It’s a unique item,” says Sammy Jay of Peter Harrington Bookstore. Unique because of the three initial typescripts, this is the only one that the writer had preserved. “Unlike the other two versions, which he had entrusted to two different people, this one was his working version, in which he made corrections to the initial text,” he explains.
A sale that attracts global attention
In addition to the corrections made by the hand of Saint-Exupéry, this typescript includes passages not retained, and therefore never published. The other two typescripts are respectively in the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF) and the University of Texas. The autograph manuscript is in New York. Such an object is extremely rare on the old book market, underlines the bookseller.
“What is interesting with this typescript,” he observes, “is that it allows us to glimpse the creative process” of the author. “He really struggled to come up with the phrase ‘We only see with the heart,’” he continues. The Little Prince is one of the best-selling books in the world, more “than volume 1 of Harry Potter and The Hobbit combined”, assures Sammy Jay. At the end of this sale, it is possible that the typescript will join museum or private Asian or Arab collections. “We already feel a lot of interest in the world,” he assures.
