Anne Frank muore a Bergen-Belsen tra il febbraio e il marzo del 1945, pochi mesi dopo essere stata deportata insieme alla sua famiglia. Aveva trascorso i due anni precedenti nascosta in quell’«Alloggio segreto», dedicando parte delle sue lunghe giornate alla stesura del Diario, un documento unico, commovente e sincero. Ma Anne, che sognava di diventare una scrittrice, non si limitò ad affidare al Diario la cronaca quotidiana della sua vita in clandestinità. Nonostante l’esistenza impossibile che la guerra e il razzismo antisemita la costrinsero a vivere, infatti, Anne non smise mai di raccontare e di raccontarsi, accumulando pagine e pagine di pensieri, ricordi e annotazioni. Tutti gli scritti raccoglie – per la prima volta in un unico volume – questo prezioso materiale. Oltre alle diverse stesure del Diario troveremo i suoi racconti, le lettere, i pensieri tratti dai suoi libri preferiti e un quaderno con appunti sulla mitologia antica per lungo tempo inediti. Un’edizione filologicamente curata, arricchita da una serie di saggi che ricostruiscono la vita di Anne e della sua famiglia, l’occupazione di Amsterdam e la storia del Diario. A completare il volume un apparato di foto e documenti, una tavola cronologica, l’albero genealogico della famiglia Frank e una bibliografia essenziale.(fonte: Einaudi)

5 full stars! I couldn’t recommend this book more highly although I recommend additional Anne Frank books too.

This is a wonderful book. I just happened to see it on my library branch’s shelf. Copies are still available on the shelf and very few people on Goodreads have rated/reviewed it. That’s a shame. Readers who haven’t read the diary or who have but want to read more this is the book I’d recommend. There are other books about Anne Frank that are also worth reading but this is a good place to start.

It is big though, and very heavy. I wasn’t willing to carry it around with me and even at home, reading as I do half lying down with books resting on my chest, it wasn’t all that comfortable. It was completely worth it to read it though. If I wasn’t having to get rid of books and could buy books I’d likely buy this one. In my opinion it is better read over time and not all at once. In order to read & reread it cover to cover I needed over a month. Luckily I was able to renew it for as long as I needed.

Anyone planning to buy The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank for themselves or as a gift, I recommend buying, or borrowing, this complete works edition. The extras (not Anne’s writing) are also great. Essays, photos, additional information, all worthwhile.

My mother introduced me to the diary when I was 11. At that time nobody knew it was abridged. My mother had loved it and was eager to give it to me. I wish it could have been when I was 13 or even 12. I would have appreciated it more the first time I read it. I so wish my mother could have read the definitive version of the diary and this book and so many other great books that have been published since 1965. My review of the (I think originally published) diary is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1183333

I already have read/own the diary (a few versions) and the Tales from the Secret Annex book, and I think I’d seen all of the photos, and more, but I’d never read the letters, the verses in friendship books, the favourite quotes notebook, the Egypt Book, or all/most of the Background and Context essays, nor I had seen all of the contents included in the Appendix. I enjoyed looking at the family tree.

Reading the diary, given that already know about when Anne died, the date they were arrested, the date of the last diary entry, etc. as I look at the dates of the diary entries I know what Anne didn’t know and I find that disconcerting. Thinking: In a year they’ll be arrested, in a year she’ll be dead, etc.

I’d been planning to read just the portions I hadn’t yet read, but I ended up reading the entire book cover to cover, after first perusing many of the contents throughout the book.

Her work in progress novel “Cady’s Life” was in its early stages, I think, but it’s remarkably good. She was only about fourteen when she was working on it. Naturally, though it is definitely fiction, as with most first novelists, it’s autobiographical.

The book’s Contents:

a preface by the Anne Frank Fonds, Basle

I The Writings of Anne Frank

the definitive edition of the Anne Frank diary

the book Tales and Events from the Secret Annex (with its many contents listed)

Further Wriings:

Letters

Verses in friendship books

The favourite quotes notebook

The Egypt book

II Photos and Documents

III Background and Context

Mirjam Pressler: Anne Frank’s Life

Mirjam Pressler: The History of Anne Frank’s Family

Gerhirschfeld: The Contemporary Historical Context

Francine Prose: The Publication History of Anne Frank’s Diary

IV Appendix

Diary Versions A and B
With Editorial Note, Diary Version A, Diary Version B

Editorial Note

Family Tree: The Franks

Chronology Table

Further Reading

About the Translators

Picture Acknowledgements

Editorial Note

About the Anne Frank Fonds ( )

Anne Frank: The Collected Works brings together for the first time Anne's world-famous diary, in both the version edited for publication by her father and the more revealing original, together with her letters, essays and important contextual scholarship. Supported by the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, set up by Otto Frank to be the guardian of Anne's work, this is a landmark publication marking the anniversary of 90 years since Anne's birth in 1929.

2192 The Works of Anne Frank translated from the Dutch by B. M. Mooyaard-Doubleday and Michel Mok (read 4 Mar 1989) This book includes The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank, together with shorter stories and essays. She was 15 when she died of typhus in March of 1945 in Bergen-Bergen in a concentration camp. She and her parents and an older sister went into hiding in July 1942 in Amsterdam, together with another Jewish family. They were discovered Aug 4, 1944. Only Anne's father survived the concentration camp. This is a poignant account, the writing (how much it has been improved by the translator I do not know) is of a high character, and I am glad I read it. ( )