Wind, Sand and Stars.

SAINT-EXUPERY, Antoine de.

$1,200.00

Item Number: 147483

New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1939.

First edition of Saint-Exupery’s philosophical memoir of flight. Octavo, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt inner dentelles stamp-signed by the Harcourt Bindery, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Translated from the French by Lewis Galantiere. Decorations by John O’Hara Cosgrove II. An exceptional presentation.

“Everything went into Wind, Sand and Stars: the Saharan flights and crashes; the South American flights and near-crashes; the Libyan adventure; Guillaumet in the Andes; the enchanted evenings… Combined-with a dash of mysticism and a generous sprinkling of hymns to fraternity-those writings make for some of the most glorious descriptions of flight ever published…. ‘To read it is to forget we are earthbound,’ raved the Atlantic reviewer” (Schiff, 306-8). The American Booksellers Association voted Wind, Sand and Stars the best non-fiction work of 1939 while the French version, Terre des hommes, received the Academie Francaise’s prize for best novel of the year.