The "Flying Crow"
From the first printing to 4th printing of Reynal & Hitchcock's French edition, there is a black contamination as if a bird is flying (on the page 63). I have 5 copies of 5th printing amog them I find two types of illustrations. Three of them have the "crow" and the other 2 copies (maybe the later 5th printing) havn't. It seems likely that the crow/condor survived till in the early press of fifth printing, and, had fly away from the later press of fifth printing. This "crow/condor" dissapeared permanently from the 6th printing and laters. [ When the cover has been replaced with an private binding, it is quite difficult to know wether the item was the first printing or the latest ones. This "Crow/Condor" is one of my first indication in the world. (Many copies of all printings of the French version of the first edition were needed to get the final conclusion. This site is the only one that has enough copies of THE LITTLE PRINCE/LE PETIT PRINCE.) This contamination is very useful to distinguish between the first edition and the none-nubered editions of the french version from the Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc. ]
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