Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupery was born on 29 June 1900 in Lyon, France. He first flew in a plane when he was twelve years old, an experience which ignited a life-long love of aviation and adventure.

After serving in the French air force, Saint-Exupery joined a pioneering aviation company and helped to establish the first airmail routes over north Africa and South America, surviving numerous accidents and gaining the Legion d'honneur for his service. His experiences inspired several books, including Night Flight (1931), and Wind, Sand and Stars (1939), which were awarded France's highest literary awards.

He wrote The Little Prince during a sojourn in the US, where it was first published in 1943, before he returned to France to fly military reconnaissance missions. On 31 July 1944, Saint-Exupery took off from an air base in Corsica, but never returned. His disappearance remained the subject of speculation until 1998, when his identity bracelet was recovered from the sea off the coast of Marseille.