Books

First US edition, first printing, of "the best-known personal document associated with the Holocaust and one of the most widely read books of modern times" (Graver, p. 222). The UK edition was published earlier the same year. The British-born translator, Barbara Mooyaart-Doubleday, was living in Amsterdam when the original Dutch-language edition appeared in 1947. Having impressed Frank's father Otto with a sample chapter, she was engaged to make the complete translation by the London publishers Vallentine Mitchell, who specialized in books of Jewish interest. The London edition, published in April, was received quietly; it was not until the appearance of the US edition in June that the book entered the best-seller lists and announced itself as one of the emblematic books of the 20th century. "Anne's diary is both a fine piece of literature and the testament of a vivacious, lively, and insightful adolescent during very troubled times... [It] put a human face to the unfathomable statistics of the millions of individuals who suffered and died" (Cargas, pp. 52-3). Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in silver, pictorial endpapers, top edge red. With dust jacket. Plan of annexe and manuscript facsimile of diary within text. Bookplate of the antiquarian musical manuscript dealer Roger W. Gross (1938-2013) to front pastedown. A handful of bumps to extremities including corners, inner hinges tender but holding firm, cloth and contents clean; unclipped jacket creased and rubbed, nicks to extremities: a very good copy in good jacket. Sagita Cargas, entry for Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature, 2002; Lawrence Graver, entry for the Holocaust Encyclopedia, 2001.

'The Diary of a Young Girl' documents Anne Frank's life in hiding during World War II, offering a poignant perspective on the challenges faced by Jews during the Holocaust.