With over 140 million copies sold, The Little Prince is the second best-selling commercial book in history—just behind The Lord of the Rings and ahead of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It has been translated into more than 300 languages. Every year the book finds itself in the hands of two million new fans, children and adults alike. That it captures the hearts of such a wide audience speaks to its power and universality. It’s ostensibly a children’s book, though it strikes a chord with even the most world-weary adult. It’s chock-full of morals—about growing up, about what’s important and what’s not, about happiness and success and meaning, and everything all great books are about—though it’s never moralistic. Such a singular book could have only been written by a singular writer. In the case of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, that’s an understatement.

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry was born on this day, 119 years ago, in Lyon, France. His childhood was marked by misfortune, most notably the death of his father, when he was 4, and then the death of his brother. Left as the only man in the family, Saint-Exupéry first tried to join the Naval Academy but failed his exams, and then entered the École des Beaux-Arts to study architecture. This proved to be another false start. (It would also be his only formal training in drawing, though he would illustrate The Little Prince himself.) After he dropped out, he found work where he could. Eventually, he joined the military and, on his own dime, took flying lessons. He was transferred to the French Air Force, but soon after he crashed his aircraft (it would be the first of many), his fiancée and her family pressured him to stop flying. (It’s no coincidence that the two never ended up marrying.) After more odd jobs, he could no longer prolong the inevitable and started flying again, this time on postal flights—some of the world’s first.

His routes took him all across the world, especially to South America and Africa, and included a good deal of adventure (his job title included negotiating the release of coworkers taken hostage in the Sahara). Through the years that followed, his work moved him to Argentina, where he began to put his exceptional life experiences down on the page in the form of both fiction and nonfiction.

1931 was one of the most consequential years in Saint-Exupéry’s short life. His second novel, Vol de nuit, or “Night Flight,” earned him much attention from the literary community and would open doors that let him indulge his writerly ambitions. (The book revolves around sacrifices made for the greater good, a theme that would only become more in vogue as the world plunged into war.) It was also this year that he married Consuelo Suncin, a Salvadoran writer and artist. Though their marriage was not an easy one (they were on and off for years), it would help propel much of his work; in The Little Prince, she’s often seen as the inspiration for the rose.

The rest of 1930s can be seen as the spring and summer of Saint-Exupéry’s life. He would write, travel the world, and play out the many dramas of his marriage. Though these years may seem completely detached from the work that would define his life, on a closer look, they’re inextricable. Take, for example, this decade’s most notable event: His 1935 crash in the Sahara, as detailed in his 1939 memoir Terre des hommes (or Wind, Sand and Stars). In a race from Paris to Saigon (one which had a prize of 150,000 francs), Saint-Exupéry and his copilot André Prévot crashed near the Nile Delta. Though they survived, they had to brave dehydration, hallucinations, and a shoddy map. Eventually, after four days of torture, they were rescued by a man on a camel. It’s easy to see the connection to The Little Prince, which is the story of a pilot who crashes and finds himself in a barren landscape with only a limited supply of water. In fact there are quite a few details in common between The Little Prince and Saint-Exupéry’s personal life. In the story, the prince’s home is called “Asteroid B-612,” and one of Saint-Exupéry’s old planes had the serial number “A-612.” Critics have also found larger connections, such as one between the baobab trees and the Nazi’s campaign to take over the earth. Others have speculated about the book’s connection to Saint-Exupéry’s infidelities, referencing the scene where the prince finds a field of roses when he lands on earth and is shocked to realize the one he found on an asteroid is not unique.

He fled France after its defeat and arrived in the United States in December 1940. (His plan, reportedly, was to convince the States to enter World War II.) If it was a creatively productive time, it was also one full of health problems and stress—political stress, marital stress, and even friendship stress. It was a combative period back in his home country (and the rest of the world), and with all the nuances and variations of support, it simply wasn’t possible for one to keep all their friends at the same time. One of his stateside associates, noticing all the pressures he was experiencing, proposed that he put them to good (and good-natured) use: a children’s book. In the latter half of 1942, after a speaking tour (pictured below), he wrote The Little Prince, first in New York City and then, sick of the noise and distractions, in a Long Island mansion. He took friends and visitors, but for the most part, he kept focused on his work: the writing, editing, and illustrating of the book.

With all its fantastical elements and departures from reality, The Little Prince can feel like a dream. It should make sense then that Saint-Exupéry usually starting writing around 11 p.m. (with coffee by his side) and continued into the rest of the night. He would often wake up at his desk, starting his day face-to-face with his life’s work.

Though Saint-Exupéry was born with a grand imagination, it was his obsessiveness that helped him turn his creations into gold—a trait that extended to all aspects of his life. (It was said that he would read while he flew and couldn’t stop reading once he started. As the tale goes, he once circled an airport for an hour, delaying his landing so that he could finish his book.) Once he got to the editing stage of The Little Prince, he was exacting. Critics have noted that the final manuscript is just about half the length of his first draft, a fact that underscores Saint-Exupéry’s commitment to getting things just right. Through the acquisition of many of his drafts, we also know that the most memorable line of the book was rewritten about 15 times. The final version: On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux (“One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye”). Analysts of these drafts note that many of the deletions were made in order to keep the story nonspecific and ambiguous—one of the many reasons it resonates with such disparate audiences.

After The Little Prince was published, in April 1943, Saint-Exupéry resumed his vocation—despite warnings and objections from friends and family (at 43, he was well over the maximum age to be a pilot). He joined the Free French Forces (the exiled French government’s military force that battled Axis powers in World War II) and, three weeks before the Liberation of Paris, disappeared from the face of the earth.

Saint-Exupéry had been immensely proud of The Little Prince. One can even speculate that he relished the mixed praise it received from critics, who didn’t know if they should approach it as a children’s book or as one for adults. When he returned to the war, he kept a copy with him to read to others. And so it’s no stretch of the imagination to assume that when his life ended, either in the air or stranded on land, his greatest gift to the world was on his person.