The French Writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944), was born in Lyon. His first two books, SOUTHERN MAIL and NIGHT FLIGHT, are distinguished by a poetic evocation of the romance and discipline of flying. Later works, including WIND, SAND AND STARS and FLIGHT TO ARRAS, stress his humanistic philosophy. Saint-Exupery's popular children's book THE LITTLE PRINCE is also read by adults for its allegorical meaning. Saint-Exupery's plane disappeared during a mission in World War II.

Both a gripping tale of adventure and a poetic meditation, Antoine de Saint Exupery's Wind, Sand and Stars is the lyrical autobiography of an aviation pioneer, from the author of The Little Prince. This Penguin Modern Classics edition is translated from the French with an introduction by William Rees. In 1926 de Saint-Exupery began flying for the pioneering airline Latecoere - later known as Aeropostale - opening up the first mail routes across the Sahara and the Andes. Wind, Sand and Stars is drawn from this experience. Interweaving encounters with nomadic Arabs and other adventures into a...

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, an intrepid and eccentric adventurer, transferred his passion for flying to the written word by writing several classics of aviation literature, including Southern Mail and Night Flight. Based on Saint-Exupery's trail-blazing flights for the French airmail service over the Sahara and later, the Andes, these two novels evoke the tragic courage and nobility of the airborne pioneers who took enormous risks, flying in open cock-pits in planes that were often fragile and unstable.