A young girl's diary

This authentic diary, kept by a Viennese schoolgirl when she was eleven to fourteen years old, first appeared publicly in 1919. Richly expressive and emotionally moving, it intimately chronicles her passage from childhood to puberty with frankness, lucidity, and an honesty that scandalized the anonymous author's contemporaries.

Originally presented by Sigmund Freud as a specimen to analyze and observe the development of a young female during the vital years of personal growth, the book relates, in a gently ironic tone, daily encounters and experiences as well as private conversations and exchanged intimacies with a close friend.

"So charming, so serious, and so artless, that it cannot fail to be of supreme interest to educationists and psychologists."—Sigmund Freud

"Psychotherapists and analysts will enjoy debating the implications of the document's frank evocation of the sexual awakening of a cosseted girl."—Publisher's Weekly