Almanach van vernuft en kuns

Title: Almanach van vernuft en kuns

Publication: Te Amsterdam: Bij J. van Gulik, 1801.

Description: Macrominiature 1801 Dutch almanac, containing a calendar, useful facts, and a selection of stories and poems. Engraved title page and four additional engraved plates. Rebound by Jacqueline Sanders-van Maarsen, Anne Frank's best friend, in half brown cloth with marbled paper over boards, with binder's printed paper label on front pastedown. 16mo; 4 x 3 inches; [12], 16, 142 pages, [5] leaves of plates. Incomplete copy with 9 leaves wanting (8 in gatherings A and B and the final leaf). Interior worn with damp-staining and soiling, but in an attractive binding with only light wear. Fair in a Very Good+ binding.

Jacqueline Sanders-van Maarsen (1929 -) is best known for being Anne Frank's best friend. In June 1942, Anne wrote in her diary: "Jacqueline van Maarsen, whom I only just got to know at the Jewish Lyceum, is now my best friend." She is also referred to as Jopie in the diary. The van Maarsen family survived the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, when Jacqueline's formerly Catholic mother convinced the authorities that they were not Jewish and that the J" should be removed from their identity cards.

After the war, van Maarsen was one of the first people to whom Anne's father Otto Frank showed Anne's diary. The diary includes a goodbye letter from Frank to van Maarsen. After the war, van Maarsen trained in bookbinding in Paris and became an award-winning bookbinder. She successfully hid her identity as Frank’s best friend for decades, embracing the anonymity of working in her binding studio and using her married name Sanders. After noticing that some individuals were taking advantage of Anne Frank’s story for their own benefit, van Maarsen felt obliged to go public with her identity and "to write for the one who could no longer write." She then reclaimed the van Maarsen name and wrote five books about Anne Frank and the dangers of antisemitism.