The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition [Hardcover]

Anne Frank (Author), David Barnouw (Editor), Gerrold Van Der Stroom (Editor), Arnold J. Pomerans (Translator), B.M. Mooyaart-Doubleday (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 1989

A comparison of the three versions of Anne Frank's diary; Anne's original entries, including never-before-published material; the diary as she herself edited it while in hiding; and the best-known version, edited by her father.

B & W photographs throughout

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This valuable addition to the literature of the Holocaust assembles for the first time the three known versions of Frank's diary--the original, a self-edited version of same, and yet another edited by her father. It also contains a variety of related studies and reports, e.g., handwriting and paper analyses, new documentation regarding the Frank family's arrest, and a wealth of information about the diary's troubled publication history. Prepared under the auspices of the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, this authoritative volume will silence forever those who have denied the diary's authenticity. It honors and enriches a story that has inspired most of the civilized world for over 40 years. Mandatory for all but the smallest libraries.
- Mark R. Yerburgh, Trinity Coll. Lib., Burlington, Vt.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English, Dutch (translation)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 719 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (May 12, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385240236
• ISBN-13: 978-0385240239
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.1 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,226,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( F ) > Frank, Anne

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anne's message enhanced, January 15, 2000

By 

Robbie Lewis (Canberra, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition (Hardcover)

"The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition" is a wonderful chronicle on the life and writings of that perky Dutch teenager. Now in my late thirties, I first read her diary at thirteen. I was just a frisky Australian schoolboy trying to learn more about the mysterious world of girls. That first read, though, put me in tears. The diary enchanted me and I wanted to know more about Anne, her family, and those fatal frosted footsteps beyond the Secret Annex.

In time, I would learn more, much more. As the "The Critical Edition" shows there is in fact not one diary but several as Anne rethought and revised her own work. "The Critical Edition" places the various revisions side by side so readers can gain an insight into how Anne constructed her work. There is genius in Anne's work but it didn't always come in the first draft. As inspiration to us mortals, she too, had to work at it.

"The Critical Edition" has an especially fascinating account of the publishing history of the diary. Anne's father was the key to publication and it would be some time before he could come to terms with Anne's incredibly honest account of her developing sexuality and those raw comments on her mother, Edith. Publication also came at a time when people's minds were barely coping with understanding World War II and its legacy. For the first time, "The Critical Edition" highlights the difficulties with translating Anne's diary into German and how, for some, it had come too soon and too fast after the great conflict. Yet, for others, the diary was too good to be the work of - in Anne's words - an "incurable chatterbox". Again, this scholarly (and lengthy) work reveals the outcome of analysis that proves the diary's authenticity.

For the reader there is the danger that the light shed on Anne's life and work by this book will lower her from the enormous pedestal she has arisen. In fact, Anne's spirit emerges even stronger. "The Diary of Anne Frank: the Critical Edition" enhances Anne's irrevocable message that freedom and good can reign over a corrupt and evil world.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for anyone interested in Anne Frank, November 25, 1999

By 

Michael K. Halloran - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition (Hardcover)

This edition of the famous diary of Anne Frank is unlike any other. Subtitled "The Critical Edition" it includes not only the published version in the translation by Mrs. B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday, but also everything that was withheld -- at the request of Anne's father -- from the original published version.

While in hiding, Anne heard on a radio broadcast that after the war the Dutch government wanted to collect memoirs and diaries of citizens' wartime experiences. Anne decided to start a revision of her diary, clarifying certain passages and adding in more detail, while deleting items that she deemed unimportant or too personal (Anne wrote very candidly about her own sexuality). The critical edition of her diary includes Anne's first diary, her revisions, and the final, published version.

In addition, this volume contains exhaustively researched sections on the arrest and betrayal of the members of the "Secret Annex," the publishing history of the diary, an account of the creation of the play version, a chronicle of the attacks made on the diary's authenticity, and an incredibly meticulous handwriting analysis comparing letters known to have been written by Anne with excerpts from the diary itself.

I first read "The Diary of Anne Frank" when I was thirteen years old. I reread it about every three or four years and it speaks to me on a new level every time. It has become my all-time favorite book. With this beautiful edition, I am once again disovering this amazing document and this remarkable child.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book..., April 10, 2000

By 

Andrew LeRoy - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition (Hardcover)

I read the Diary of Anne Frank when I was nine or ten years old. I liked it then, but I understood little of what was happening, and what she was saying. When I was fourteen, I went to Holland, and saw the house where she, her family, and the Van Daans had been in hiding. I bought the Diary there, and read it before the remainder of my trip was out. (I was in Europe for ten days) I was amazed at how she often felt the same things I did. I was also amazed at how well she could write. As an aspiring writer, I was enthralled with her devotion to detail, and reality, but at the same time I loved how she poured out her soul to the diary. Now, at the ripe old age of sixteen, I hold Anne Frank up as a writer to be respected and admired. I also wonder sometimes why it is that I am allowed to live to sixteen, and she was not. But I don't think her diary would have affected the world as much had she survived the camps. I think all of us after reading this diary will carry a little piece of the girl we know as Anne Frank with us forever.