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60 free The Little Prince trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Little Prince trivia quiz follows the fable from the narrator's first drawing to the last night in the desert. The story questions cover the boa constrictor that grown-ups mistook for a hat, asteroid B-612 and its three volcanoes, the baobabs, the vain flower under her glass globe, the six planets and their lonely grown-ups, the 1,440 sunsets, the fox's secret, the merchant's thirst pill and the well found at dawn. The rest is about the man and the book. There are questions on the 1935 crash in the desert that the story grew from, the New York exile where it was written, the friend it is dedicated to, the manuscript at the Morgan Library, the 140 million copies, the 600 translations, the 50-franc note, the airport in Lyon, and the P-38 Lightning that vanished over the Mediterranean in 1944. Gene Wilder's fox and Jeff Bridges's aviator get a look in too. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the novella, its author and the 2015 film, and each explanation adds one detail worth passing on. It works for readers of any age, book clubs, French classes and anyone who still remembers what the fox said.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which year was The Little Prince first published?
1943
It came out in New York in both English and French; France did not get its own edition until after the Liberation, because Vichy had banned the author's works.
Q 02In which country was the book first published?
United States
The author was living in exile in New York at the time, trying to persuade America to enter the war against Nazi Germany.
Q 03What did grown-ups think the narrator's first childhood drawing depicted?
A hat
It was really a boa constrictor digesting an elephant; his second drawing showed the inside to prove it, and he was told to take up something practical.
Q 04Where does the narrator's plane crash?
The Sahara desert
The author really did crash there in 1935 while chasing an air-race speed record, and nearly died of thirst before help arrived.
Q 05What animal does the little prince ask the narrator to draw?
A sheep
After three rejected attempts the narrator draws a crate and says the animal is inside, which delights the prince.
Q 06What is the name of the little prince's home asteroid?
B-612
A real asteroid discovered in 1993 was later named 46610 Bésixdouze, because 46610 written in hexadecimal is B612.
Q 07Roughly how big is the little prince's home planet?
The size of a house
It has three tiny volcanoes and enough soil for baobab seedlings to be a constant threat.
Q 08Why was the astronomer who discovered the prince's asteroid ignored when he first presented his findings?
He wore traditional Turkish clothing
When he repeated the talk in a European suit, the same findings were accepted, a jab at grown-ups who judge by appearances.
Q 09How many volcanoes does the prince's asteroid have?
Three
Two are active and one is dormant; the prince cleans them out like chimneys, and they may echo the three volcanoes the author saw while recovering from a crash in Central America.
Q 10Which trees does the prince constantly pull up before they can overrun his tiny planet?
Baobabs
Some researchers read the grasping trees as a political allegory for a menace threatening to swallow the world in 1942.
Q 11What kind of flower grows on the prince's asteroid and becomes the love of his life?
A rose
She coughs and exaggerates her ailments so the prince will fuss over her; on Earth he is crushed to find a whole garden of flowers just like her.
Q 12What does the prince build to shelter his flower from the wind and cold?
A glass globe and a screen
When he leaves, she refuses the globe and says she can look after herself.
Q 13The prince's vain flower is thought to be modelled on the author's wife, from which country?
El Salvador
Consuelo Suncin was a once-divorced, once-widowed writer and artist whom he married at Grasse in 1931.
Q 21According to the fox, one can only see rightly with what?
The heart
The phrase is believed to have been suggested by the author's close New York friend Silvia Hamilton Reinhardt, who is also thought to be the model for the fox.
Q 22The merchant sells a pill that removes the need to drink; how many minutes a week does it save?
53
The prince says he would spend the time walking slowly towards a spring of fresh water.
Q 23According to the railway switchman, who are the only passengers who ever look out of the train windows?
The children
The adults, he says, rush from place to place never satisfied and never sure what they are chasing.
Q 14How many other planets does the prince visit before reaching Earth?
Six
Each is home to a single grown-up, from a king with no subjects to a lamplighter with no time to sleep.
Q 15What does the businessman on his own planet spend all day counting?
Stars
He believes that by counting and cataloguing them he owns them, an idea the prince finds useless.
Q 16Why does the tippler say he drinks?
To forget the shame of drinking
The circular logic is one of the book's sharpest jokes about grown-ups.
Q 17The lamplighter's planet spins so fast that how many sunsets does it have each day?
1,440
A full day there lasts one minute; the prince, who loves sunsets, says it is the planet he would most like to have stayed on.
Q 18Which grown-up persuades the prince to visit Earth next?
The geographer
He knows nothing about his own planet because he only writes down what explorers report, and none ever come.
Q 19What is the first creature the prince meets after landing on Earth?
A snake
It tells him it has the power to send him home whenever he wishes, which is exactly what happens at the end.
Q 20Which animal asks the prince to tame it and teaches him what makes his flower unique?
A fox
Its parting secret is that what is essential is invisible to the eye; the author rewrote that line some fifteen times.
Q 24How many days after the crash do the narrator and the prince finally find a well?
Eight
The prince insists that 'somewhere in the desert there is a well', and at dawn the narrator finds it.
Q 25What does the prince tell the narrator to look at whenever he wants to think of the prince's laughter?
The stars
He says it will seem as if all of them are laughing; the next morning the narrator cannot find his body.
Q 26To whom is the book dedicated?
Léon Werth
He was a Jewish anarchist writer, 22 years older than the author, sitting out the war cold and hungry in the Jura; the dedication is corrected to him 'when he was a little boy'.
Q 27In which US state was most of the book written and illustrated in 1942?
New York
The author worked mostly at Bevin House, a 22-room mansion on Long Island; he had asked for a hut and complained he had been given the Palace of Versailles.
Q 28Which New York institution has held the original handwritten manuscript since 1968?
The Morgan Library & Museum
It bought the 140-page draft from the author's friend Silvia Hamilton; it is the only complete handwritten draft known to survive.
Q 29Roughly how many copies has The Little Prince sold worldwide?
140 million
It still sells almost two million copies a year and has been turned into ballets, operas, films and radio plays.
Q 30The Little Prince is the second most translated book ever published; which is the only work ahead of it?
The Bible
By November 2024 it existed in 600 languages and dialects, including Scots, Irish and Shetlandic.