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The Diary of a Young Girl

The Definitive Edition

by Anne Frank ; Mirjam Pressler ; Otto H. Frank

Summary

One of the most valuable and informative artifacts of the holocaust, THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL is the actual diary of Anne Frank, a German-Jewish girl living in Amsterdam during World War II. The diary begins on June 14, 1942, shortly after Anne's 13th birthday. While initial entries focus on Anne's life at school and her relationships with her friends and family, she does touch on the ever-growing power of the Nazi party and the increasing persecution of Jewish people. In July of 1942, fearing deportation to Auschwitz, the Franks go into hiding in a "secret annex" in the attic of Mr. Frank's former business. Soon after, they are joined by the Van Daan family and a dentist named Mr. Dussel. For over two years, Anne recorded what life was like in the annex-the fear, tension, frustration-and even boredom-of a life lived under very compromised conditions. Much of the diary centers on Anne's difficult, if typically adolescent, relationship with her mother as well as on her crush on the Van Daan's teenage son, Peter. Anne also shares her hopes for her life after the war-and her dream of becoming a writer. In this way, the diary introduces readers to a very typical teenage girl-a girl whose thoughts and emotions put a human face on the almost incomprehensible horror of the Holocaust. First published in 1947 by Anne's father (the only member of the group to survive the war), THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL has since been translated into 31 languages and serves as an eloquent memorial to all those who died in the Holocaust.

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Media Reviews

"The new English version of 'The Diary of a Young Girl' is based on a Dutch edition of 1991 that incorporated, for the first time, certain vitriolic comments by Anne about her fellow-tenants of the Secret Annex and reflections on her own nascent sexuality (including one fleeting impulse of adolescent lesbianism). Otto Frank, in the early aftermath of the war, had seen fit to delete these passages. The result of their inclusion is a more believable self-representation of Anne as a sometimes sharp-tongued, touchy, lively girl. The new version is less sugar, more vinegar. And this is enhanced in Susan Massotty's translation, which, at least to judge by how it reads as English, nicely conveys the colloquial vivacity and spunkiness of the young diarist."    -- Robert Alter

   -- New Republic

"I find myself laying off the hot-off-the-press things I was obliged to read and returning to books I have read before (Anne Frank's 'Diary', for instance)..."    -- Rebecca Pepper Sinkler

   -- Women\'s Review of Books

"Anne's journal is not only highly interesting as a vivid factual record of life in Amsterdam during the most oppressive and terrifying years of the war, it is also a remarkable study in the psychology of a small group of people forced to live together in almost unbearable proximity."    -- Antonia White

   -- New Statesman

"Anne Frank's diary is too tenderly intimate a book to be frozen with the label 'classic,' and yet no lesser designation serves. For little Anne Frank, spirited, moody, witty, self-doubting, succeeded in communication in virtually perfect, or classic, form the drama of puberty. But her book is not a classic to be left on the library shelf. It is a warm and stirring confession, to be read over and over for insight and enjoyment."    -- Meyer Levin

   -- New York Times Book Review

"Why is it that we still find ourselves drawn to the writings of this young woman, who has been dead for forty years? Her writing is startling in its clarity and its contemporary sensibilities. But that cannot be all. Anne Frank is compelling because hers is not a tale of endless horror. She is young, and hopeful...She is not Everywoman, she is Anne. Her story is her own and no one else's. Yet we relate to Anne Frank because she is like us."    -- Alana Suskin

   -- Whole Earth Review

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: Doubleday
Published date: 1995
Size: 6.25 x 8.5 inches
Weight: 1.15 pounds

Synopses

The journal of a Jewish girl in her early teens describes both the joys and torments of daily life, as well as typical adolescent thoughts, throughout two years spent in hiding with her family during the Nazi occupation of Holland.

Publisher's Notes

The diary as Anne Frank wrote it. At last, in a new translation, this definitive edition contains entries about Annes burgeoning sexuality and confrontations with her mother that were cut from previous editions. Anne Franks The Diary of a Young Girl is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century. Since its publication in 1947, it has been a beloved and deeply admired monument to the indestructible nature of the human spirit, read by millions of people and translated into more than fifty-five languages. Doubleday, which published the first English translation of the diary in 1952, now offers a new translation that captures Annes youthful spirit and restores the original material omitted by Annes father, Otto -- approximately thirty percent of the diary. The elder Frank excised details about Annes emerging sexuality, and about the often-stormy relations between Anne and her mother. Anne Frank and her family, fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation forces, hid in the back of an Amsterdam office building for two years. This is Anne's record of that time. She was thirteen when the family went into the "Secret Annex," and in these pages, she grows to be a young woman and proves to be an insightful observer of human nature as well. A timeless story discovered by each new generation, The Diary of a Young Girl stands without peer. For young readers and adults, it continues to bring to life this young woman, who for a time survived the worst horrors the modern world had seen -- and who remained triumphantly and heartbreakingly human throughout her ordeal.

Other Editions

• Hardcover - Bantam Dell Pub Group (1995) - from $4.00
• Paperback Reprint - Bantam Books (1997) - from $1.00

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