Subasta Bidspirit | SAINT-EXUPERY ANTOINE DE: (1900-1944)

SAINT-EXUPERY ANTOINE DE: (1900-1944) - SAINT-EXUPERY ANTOINE DE: (1900-1944) French Writer, Poet and pioneering Aviator. Saint-Exupery was a French aristocrat who became a laureate of several France's highest literary awards and is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince ( “Le Petit Prince ”) (1943), and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Night Flight (1931) and Wind, Sand and Stars (1939). Rare and excellent Autograph Manuscript, two full lengthy pages with small writing, 4to, yellow paper, n.p., n.d. [1938], in French. The seventy-five lines manuscript being his annotations and draft for his novel Wind, Sand and Stars (“Terre des Hommes”). Saint-Exupery, in his usual very difficult and small writing, annotates these first thoughts draft which will be used in the seventh chapter of his famous collection of autobiographical essays which is Wind, Sand and Stars, evoking a series of events in his life, mainly from the time when he worked for the airmail service. The central element of this story being his accident with his navigator André Prévot in the Libyan Sahara in 1935, where the two aviators nearly died of thirst. The manuscript contains several corrections and its final publication will include some changes to the present unpublished text. Saint-Exupery numbers each page to the upper left corner as ` I´ and ` II´, stating in part ` Tel est le desert. Un Coran, qui n´est qu´une règle de jeu, en change de sable en Empire. Au fond d´un Sahara qui serait vide, se joue une pièce secrète, qui remue les passions des hommes. La vraie vie du désert n´est pas faite d´exodes de tribus à la recherche d´une herbe à paître, mais du jeu qui s´y joue encore. Quelle différence de matière entre le sable soumis et l´autre! Et n´en est-il pas ainsi pour tous les hommes? En face de ce désert transfiguré qui me souviens des jeux de mon enfance…´ (“Such is the desert. A Koran, which is only a rule of the game, changes sand into an Empire. At the bottom of a Sahara that would be empty, a secret play is being played out, which stirs the passions of men. The real life of the desert is not made of exodus of tribes in search of grass to graze, but of the game that is still played there. What a difference in matter between the submitted sand and the other one! And is it not so for all men? In front of this transfigured desert which reminds me the games of my childhood…”) A manuscript of very interesting content. Creasing to the bottom right corner of the first page, with a small stain to the bottom edge of same page, otherwise G   Terre des Hommes (“Wind, Sand and Stars”) was finally published in France in February 1939, and was awarded with the Grand Prix of the French Academy. The novel would be published in US few months later, in June 1939.