60 Great Books - 41 - Bauman Rare Books “I Hope I Will Be Able To Confide Everything To You, As I Have Never Been Able To Confide In Anyone”: First Edition Of Anne Frank’s Diary, Het Achterhuis, 1947, In The Original Dust Jacket 39. FRANK, Anne. Het Achterhuis. Amsterdam, 1947. Octavo, original white and russet paper boards, dust jacket, custom cloth clamshell box. $28,500. First edition of Anne Frank’s diary, in the original Dutch, one of only 1500 copies printed, in very rare dust jacket. Anne began her new diary on her 13th birthday, June 12, 1942. Only a month later, Anne and her family would go into hiding. Anne envisioned the future publication of her diary—in fact, she began editing the text before the family’s arrest on August 4, 1944 (three days after the diary’s last entry)—and chose the title Het Achterhuis (The House Behind) herself. After its initial release, the book was translated and published in more than 60 languages. Eleanor Roosevelt called the diary “one of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war.” Illustrated with halftone frontispiece portrait, two photographs of interiors and two facsimiles. Text in Dutch. Ink owner signature on half title. Book extremely good, with toning and foxing, hinges reinforced, and a bit of toning to extremities. Exceptionally rare and fragile dust jacket very good, with large chips to spine ends excising the word “Anne,” some toning, and tape repair and patching to joints on verso. A most desirable copy, quite rare with the original dust jacket. “Anne Frank’s diary is too tenderly intimate a book to be frozen with the label ‘classic,’ and yet no lesser designation serves.” —New York Times
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