"Het Achterhuis, Dagboekbrieven van 12 Juni 1942 – 1 Augustus 1944" ["The Annex: Diary Notes from 12 June 1942 – 1 August 1944"], by Anne Frank. Amsterdam: Contact, 1947. First edition, first printing. Dutch.
Copy of the first edition of "The Diary of Anne Frank", the first printing to be published, June 1947. The earliest editing of Anne Frank’s diary was done by her father, Otto Frank, who, following the war, brought the manuscript of his daughter’s diary, which she had left behind the day she was deported to the death camps along with her family members. This edition includes a photographic portrait of Anne Frank, a floor plan of the house where the family hid, a picture of the house's interiors, and photocopies of some of the handwritten pages of Anne’s diary. The edition begins with an introduction by the Dutch historian Annie Romein-Verschoor (1885-1975), who assisted in bringing the book to publication.
IX, 253, [1] pages + [3] plates (two of which are printed on both sides) with pictures. Approx. 18.5 cm. Good condition. Stains. Minor blemishes (a minor open tear to pages 53-54, causing very slight damage to text). Stains and minor blemishes to binding. Slight tears to edges of spine.
Publication of "The Diary of a Young Girl"
Anne Frank's diary is considered to be the most famous personal account of an individual’s experiences at the time of the Holocaust. Anne began writing her diary on her 13th birthday, in an initially blank diary she received as a birthday gift – an autograph book with a checkered red-and-white binding with a small lock. By the time Anne’s entries had reached the end of the autograph book, the family had gone into hiding, and the remainder of the diary was recorded in two regular school notebooks. The original autograph book and the two additional notebooks – sometimes referred to as "A-version" – contain diary notes from the years 1942-1944, but not 1943; apparently, a piece of the original text was lost when the family was arrested by the Germans.
In 1944, Anne started to write a second version – essentially a novel based on the diary already written – which she intended to publish under the title "The ‘Secret Annex"; this version is often termed "B-version". Anne was apparently inspired to write this novel after she had heard a speech on the radio given by the Dutch minister of education, Gerrit Bolkestein (a member of the Dutch government-in-exile at the time in London), in which he announced his intention, once the war was over, to collect manuscripts, diaries, and letters written during the war, to enable the story of the suffering of citizens under Nazi occupation to be told to the world, for the benefit of future generations. This second version, "B-version", contains the chapter covering the period missing from the first version, "A-version.
Following the arrest of the Frank family, Anne’s handwritten notes were discovered by Miep Gies, one of the women who had assisted the family during their time in hiding, recognized by the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center as a "Righteous Among the Nations". Gies had kept the notes hidden in her house until the end of the war. When Anne’s death at the hands of the Nazis was confirmed beyond doubt, Gies handed the diaries to Anne’s father Otto. The latter decided – after struggling with the issue and after considerable hesitation – that Anne herself would have wished to see the diaries published. He then edited and compiled Anne’s writings to produce a third version which combines "A-version" and "B-version", and this was the version of the diary submitted for publication.
"The Diary of Anne Frank" was published in June 1947 by Contact Publishing, in a very small-scale edition numbering only some 3,000 copies. This edition was completely sold out within a few months, and a second printing was already issued that same year. Over the years, the book quickly became the most famous personal account of anyone’s experiences from the days of the Holocaust, as well as the Number One bestselling personal diary of all times, not to mention one of the most widely read books anywhere in the world. In 2009, the original notebooks of the diary – kept in the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam – were submitted by the Netherlands to be included in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s Memory of the World Register.
