Antoine de Saint-Exupéry drew heavily on his own experiences when writing his 1943 novella, The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince). Like the story's first-person narrator, Saint-Exupéry was a pilot, and the inspiration for the book's central events came from his own 1935 crash-landing in the Sahara Desert. As the story begins, the narrator is still a young child showing off his drawings of boa constrictors eating elephants to the adults around him. The adults react with confusion and discouragement, causing the narrator to set aside his artistic ambitions and eventually become a pilot. However, while he learns to outwardly conform to the rules and expectations of adult society, the pilot never feels entirely at ease among supposedly "reasonable" (3)adults.

One day, the pilot crashes his plane in the Sahara, where a boy—the prince—unexpectedly awakens him, asking him to draw a sheep. Though startled, the pilot eventually manages to satisfy the prince, whom he soon realizes comes from another planet—specifically, a tiny asteroid labeled B-612. Gradually, the prince shares more details of his life back home, including the fact that he must constantly be on the lookout for baobabs—massive trees whose roots threaten to break the asteroid into pieces. Most importantly, the prince reveals that he left behind a rose on B-612, frustrated by her vain and demanding behavior. Now, however, he regrets the decision to leave the flower, who truly loved him underneath her airs and affectations.

After leaving Asteroid B-612, the prince travelled to a number of other small planets, which he describes to the pilot in detail. All are home to adults whose interests and priorities seem absurd to the prince: one, for instance, is inhabited by a king who insists on issuing orders for things he can't possibly control, while another is inhabited by a businessman who claims to own and profit off of the stars.

Eventually, on the advice of a geographer, the prince travels to Earth, where he hopes to find a friend. It takes the prince quite a while to encounter any humans, but in the meantime, he meets a snake who offers to help him return to Asteroid B-612, and a fox who persuades the prince to tame him. Although the prince ultimately parts with the fox, the fox insists that making friends with the prince was worth it, because it has made his life richer and more meaningful. He also urges the prince to take a second look at a rosebush he had seen previously; when the prince does so, he realizes that his own rose is unique thanks to the time and care he has lavished on her.

After saying goodbye to the fox, the prince finally encounters a few humans, including a railway switchman and a salesclerk who tries to sell the prince pills that satisfy thirst. This brings the prince's narrative more or less up to the present, where the pilot—still tinkering unsuccessfully with his plane—remarks that he'd like a drink of water himself, and that both he and the prince are likely to die of dehydration. Although impatient with the pilot's single-minded fixation on survival, the prince agrees that water would be pleasant, so the two set off in search of a well. That night, the prince says that the desert derives its beauty from the well hidden within it, and the pilot realizes that what the fox had earlier told the prince is true: "Anything essential is invisible to the eyes" (63).

The next morning, the prince and the pilot find a well, and as they drink from it, the pilot finally realizes that it isn't primarily the water's survival value that makes it important: "[The drink] was born of our walk beneath the stars, of the song of the pulley, of the effort of my arms" (71). He also realizes, however, that the prince is planning to leave Earth to return to his flower, and the prince—when pressed—admits that they are close to the spot where he first landed, one year ago tomorrow.

The pilot returns to work on his plane but comes back to the well the following evening and overhears the prince talking to the snake. The prince congratulates the pilot on successfully fixing the plane's engine and explains that he himself will also be leaving. The pilot, meanwhile, is distraught over the idea of losing the prince and overcome by a sense of foreboding, so the prince attempts to cheer him up by telling him that from now on, whenever the pilot looks at the stars, they will seem to be laughing in the prince's voice. He also attempts to persuade the pilot not to come with him to meet the snake, because it will "look as if [he's] suffering" (78). The pilot insists, however, and is there when the prince allows the snake to bite him. He sees the prince's body fall "gently, the way a tree falls" (81)to the ground.

All this happened six years ago, according to the pilot, and he is able to take some comfort in the fact that the prince's body had disappeared by morning; in other words, he must have managed to return to his planet. What's more, the pilot does hear the stars laughing, and takes pleasure in the sound. He has also realized, however, that he forgot to draw a strap on the picture of the muzzle he gave the prince to take back with the sheep. As a result, it's possible that the sheep has eaten the flower, and whenever the pilot considers this possibility, the stars seem to be crying instead. Finally, he inserts a drawing of the spot where the prince disappeared, begging his readers to memorize it and notify him if, while passing by it, they happen to meet the prince.