Anne Frank: Letters written before her diary published for first time

More letters by Anne Frank, the young teenager famous for her best-selling diary written during World War Two, are being published in full and in English for the first time ever.

The letters penned before she and her family went into hiding reveal a different part of Anne's life before the Holocaust.

She wrote the letters from 1936 to 1941, which was before she was given her diary for her 13th birthday in 1942.

Later that year Anne used the diary to document her life in a secret office annex in Amsterdam, as she and her family hid from the Nazis.

What's in the letters?

Despite Nazi occupation and the war, life was simpler for Anne and her family before 1942.

In the letters she writes to her grandmother about things such as growing her hair longer, receiving presents for her birthday and having braces.

She writes in one thought to be from spring 1941, "I have a little appliance in my mouth, and braces. Now I have to go to the dentist every week, and it comes out the next day. This has been going on for eight weeks, and I find it very unpleasant, of course."

In another letter, she mentions the boys in her life: "Yesterday, I went out with Sanne, Hanneli, and a boy. It was lots of fun, I have no lack of companionship as far as boys are concerned." She also tells her grandmother, "I wish I could start ice skating again, but I'll just have to have a little more patience, until the war is over."

A letter written by Anne Frank in 1936

Before Anne and her family were forced into hiding, Jewish people still faced problems.

The Nazi party (led by Adolf Hitler) was growing in popularity and it blamed Jewish people for a lot of Germany's problems. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 after elections, they began to persecute Jewish people and made life incredibly difficult for them.

The Franks decided they needed to get out of Germany, so they moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands where they thought they would be safe.

What was Anne Frank's diary?

Anne's diary has been read by millions of people all over the world

On her 13th birthday, Anne was given her now famous diary, which she called Kitty.

At the time, the Nazis had increased their persecution of Jews in the Netherlands and, in the summer of 1942, Anne's sister Margot was told by the Nazis that she had to leave her family and work in a labour camp.

This was a scary time for the Frank family and they were concerned about what might happen to Margot if she was to leave for the camp. The family decided to go into hiding in a secret annex behind Anne's father's business.

From this point Anne wrote about her experiences in her diary, until she and her family were arrested on 4 August 1944.

The Nazis sent the family to the concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The final entry in Anne's diary was just three days earlier, on 1 August 1944.

Later Anne and her sister Margot were sent to the to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where sadly they both became ill and died due to typhus. Anne was just 15 years old.

Anne Frank always had an ambition to become a writer, and despite the tragic end to her life, she has left a legacy of work which has seen her become one of the most influential voices in history.

Anne Frank's letters to her grandmother are included in a new book Anne Frank: The Collected Works.