Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl is among the most enduring
documents of the twentieth century. Since its publication in 1947, it has been
read by tens of millions of people all over the world. It remains a beloved and
deeply admired testament to the indestructable nature of the human spirit.
Restore in this Definitive Edition are diary entries that had been omitted from
the original edition. These passages, which constitute 30 percent more
material, reinforce the fact that Anne was first and foremost a teenage girl,
not a remote and flawless symbol. She fretted about, and tried to copie with,
her own emerging sexuality. Like many young girls, she often found herself
in disagreement with her mother. And like any teenager, she veered between
the carefree nature of a child and the full-fledged sorrow of an adult. Anne
emerges more human, more vulnerable, and more vital than ever.
Anne Frank and her family, fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation, hid in the
back of an Amsterdam warehouse for two years. She was thirteen when the
family went into the Secret Annex, and in these pages she grows to be a
young woman and a wise observer of human nature as well. With unusual
insight, she reveals the relations between eight people living under
extraordinary conditions, facing hunger, the ever-present threat of discovery
and death, complete estrangement from the outside world, and above all, the
boredom, the petty misunderstandings, and the frustrations of living under
such unbearable strain, in such confined quarters.
A timely story rediscovered by each new generation, The Diary of a Young
Girl stands without peer. For both young readers and adults it continues to
bring to life this young woman, who for a time survived the worst horror of
the modern world had seen — and who remained triumphantly and
heartbreakingly human throughout her ordeal. For those who know and love
Anne Frank, The Definitive Edition is a chance to discover her anew. For
readers who have not yet encountered her, this is the edition to cherish.
ANNE FRANK was born on June 12, 1929. She died while imprisoned at
Bergen-Belsen, three months short of her sixteenth birthday. OTTO H.
FRANK was the only member of his immediate framily to survive the
Holocaust. He died in 1980.
MIRJAM PRESSLER is a popular writer of books for young adults. She lives
in Germany.
Translated by Susan Massotty.