When the war broke out, Saint-Exupery offered his services as a pilot to the Resistance. He continued writing passionate letters to his wife up until his final birthday, in June 1944, one month before he disappeared while flying a reconnaissance mission over occupied France. He was forty-four years old. Neither his body nor his plane was ever found.

A hero in his lifetime, Saint-Exupery became an even greater hero after death. Written on Long Island in a quiet spell of reconciliation, The Little Prince was his greatest gift to the woman he never stopped loving, the only child to emerge from their tumultuous union. The Tale of the Rose is Consuelo's reply, the love letter she could never write to her husband, a fable just as magical and tragic as The Little Prince.