Hot off the press ! T’ Little Prince – a literary classic in Yorkshire dialect

The latest YDS publication is something very special, a translation into West Riding (Bradford) Yorkshire Dialect of one of the world’s most popular books, The Little Prince.

Written and illustrated by Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry (1900-1944), The Little Prince was published in 1943 a year before this celebrated aircraft pilot-author disappeared, mysteriously on a reconnaissance mission near Corsica, in the Mediterranean.  This novella is one of the most successful books ever published, selling over 140 million copies worldwide and being translated into 506 different languages, including several minority languages and dialects.  It is the most translated book in the world, apart from the Bible, and this now include our own Yorkshire dialect.

The story is about a pilot who is forced to land his aircraft in the middle of the Sahara Desert where he meets a young boy who he nicknames The Little Prince. The Prince tells him he has come from Asteroid B612 where he used to clean out volcanoes, remove weed seeds and visit other planets. The two go on adventures meeting other characters and creatures before finding life-giving water in a well after which The Prince vanishes in strange circumstances. It’s a mixture of children’s fantasy, science fiction, ecology, humour, and philosophy,  all illustrated by Saint-Exupéry’s own delightful colour illustrations.

Published by German publishers Edition Tintenfass, and translated into exquisite West Riding dialect by our own YDS Chairman Rod Dimbleby, T’ Little Prince is a limited edition of just 300 copies, of which a third has been allocated to the Yorkshire Dialect Society in a joint publication enterprise.

For a short period, we are offering copies of this amazing book to YDS members at the cost price of just £15. This will be for a few weeks only, after which it will be on sale to the general public at £19.50. So this is a rare opportunity to own a literary classic, an internationally celebrated text transformed into our own richly entertaining Yorkshire dialect.

It could be the perfect Christmas present for that ex-pat aunt in New Zealand or nephew in Canada who will relish this lovely reminder of their Yorkshire heritage. See our sales page for details.