After returning to the US from his Quebec speaking tour, Saint-Exupéry was pressed to work on a children's book by Elizabeth Reynal, one of the wives of his US publisher, Reynal & Hitchcock. The French wife of Eugene Reynal had closely observed Saint-Exupéry for several months, and noting his ill health and high stress levels, she suggested to him that working on a children's story would help. The author wrote and illustrated "The Little Prince" at various locations in New York City but principally in the Long Island north-shore community of Asharoken in mid-to-late 1942, with the manuscript being completed in October.