dirty ethel rackham Posted December 18, 2010 Share Posted December 18, 2010 My son's high school lit club has assigned The Definitive Edition of this book. The leader is very insistent that it has to be this edition. I have mixed feelings about this edition, which contains 30% more material ... previously edited out by her father. So, what do you all think? Is the new material valuable? Or a further invasion of privacy? Talk amongst yourselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LibraryLover Posted December 18, 2010 Share Posted December 18, 2010 I don't know which version. I've read them both and they are both amazing. As for privacy, Anne wrote and rewrote passages over and over, as she dreamed of publishing the diary after the war...she was thinking about that as she wrote, so i wouldn't say either version is an invasion of privacy. Her father did try to protect various people, and I understand that, too. Yet Anne wrote her story her way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannah C. Posted December 18, 2010 Share Posted December 18, 2010 The definitive edition will have more material in it, which won't be in the traditional edition. So your son will probably want to get the definitive edition so that he has all the material. I've read the traditional edition, and I've also read what may or may not be the "definitive" edition -- it has *everything* from the diary, in parallel format so you can see. There's the one she originally wrote, the one she revised, and the one that was published by her father, if I remember correctly. Either way, I don't remember seeing it as an invasion of privacy. The definitive edition has some more personal stuff in it, yes. I can't remember if Anne herself intended to include that stuff or not in what she wanted to publish. Either way, it was interesting to read, at least as a teenage girl. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cinder Posted December 18, 2010 Share Posted December 18, 2010 My understanding is that the bulk of the stuff cut out of the "old" edition deals with her budding sexuality; that it was deleted because the dad didn't think it appropriate to share. Ds read the old edition (for a co-op class not taught by me) and thought it was the Most Boring Book Ever! Adding 30% more material to the Already-Most-Boring-Book-Ever? It would have been disastrous here. I admit I have not read this book. I tried but . . . well, I also thought it was kinda boring. :tongue_smilie: Cinder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LibraryLover Posted December 18, 2010 Share Posted December 18, 2010 I admit I have not read this book. I tried but . . . well, I also thought it was kinda boring. :tongue_smilie: Cinder It was borng even though you knew that Anne was captured, and then died in a concentration camp? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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