May 18, 2016 - Sale 2416
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Sale 2416 - Lot 205

Price Realized: $ 11,700
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
FRANK, ANNE. Het Achterhuis: Dagboekbrieven van 12 Juni 1942-1 Augustus 1944 ["The House Behind: Diary Entries."] Illustrated with halftone frontispiece author portrait, 2 photographic reproductions of the interior of the house, 1 floor plan, and 2 facsimiles from Anne's diary. Original Dutch text. 8vo, original white and russet paper boards, cocked, spine tanned with a short split along bottom rear hinge, some uneven tanning to board edges; second issue dust jacket, spine panel chipped with loss of letters at head and tear near title with further loss of letters, small chips at spine panel foot and a few corner nicks, rear panel wrinkled, unclipped, and is approximately 5mm taller than the book; front and end matter age-toned; ownership inscription to front flyleaf corner. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Contact, (1947)
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Additional Details

the true first edition of anne frank's diary, in the exceedingly rare and unrestored second issue dust jacket. One of only 1500 copies printed. After its initial release, the book was translated and published in more than 60 languages. Upon its publication in English, Eleanor Roosevelt called the diary "one of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war." It remains one of the most widely read books in the world. "Anne Frank's diary is too tenderly intimate a book to be frozen with the label 'classic,' and yet no lesser designation serves. There is anguish in the thought of how much creative power, how much sheer beauty of living, was cut off through genocide. But through her diary Anne goes on living" (Books of the Century, 180, 183). The first issue dust jacket is so rare as to be essentially unseen, the second issue, as here, was printed in the same year and is also incredibly scarce. ABPC and Rare Book Hub each record but two copies in jacket at auction.