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Charing Cross Road 84

Helene Hanff,

Barbara van Kooten (Translator)

4.18 · Rating details · 43,262 ratings · 6,501 reviews

Een vriendschap in brieven tussen Helene Hanff uit New York en de medewerkers van Marks & Co, een antiquarische boekhandel op Charing Cross Road 84 in Londen.

In de late jaren '40 van de twintigste eeuw leest Helene Hanff een advertentie waarin staat dat de Londense boekhandel Marks & Co gespecialiseerd is in boeken die niet meer in druk zijn. Alles wat zij zou willen hebbe ...more

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Hardcover, 136 pages

Published December 2015 by Rainbow (first published January 1st 1970)

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Apr 20, 2016 Brina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: letters, novella

As a child, I loved writing to pen pals. Anywhere I went that offered a chance to sign up to be a pen pal, I did with earnest. None of the pen pals ended up amounting to much, but it was thrilling to receive letters from them in the mail. I come from a line of pen pal writers as my mother wrote to an English girl her age for her entire childhood and teenaged years. It is not surprising then, that I one of the first books I reviewed on goodreads was Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey fro As a child, I loved writing to pen pals. Anywhere I went that offered a chance to sign up to be a pen pal, I did with earnest. None of the pen pals ended up amounting to much, but it was thrilling to receive letters from them in the mail. I come from a line of pen pal writers as my mother wrote to an English girl her age for her entire childhood and teenaged years. It is not surprising then, that I one of the first books I reviewed on goodreads was Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over by Geraldine Brooks, where Brooks details her own experiences with pen pals, one that eventually lead her to move to the United States and a career in writing. It comes of less of a surprise that I would be lead to 84, Charing Cross Road, a short book of correspondence by former television writer Helene Hanff. A proclaimed Anglophile who wrote to employees of the Marks and Company Book Shop in London over a twenty year period, Hanff published her letters in book form as a gift to future readers and letter writers.

Helene Hanff is enamored by out of print, hard to find British literature. The only location close to her where she is able to obtain any just to look at is at the main branch of the New York City Public Library. Yet, that library is 50 blocks from her home and most of the time she is unable to bring the books she finds back to her apartment. The books she can read are new and do not have a history behind them. By chance, Hanff's upstairs neighbors are British, and they give her the name of Marks and Co. Starting in 1949, Hanff begins writing to Marks' employees requesting new or slightly used second hand copies of all things British, everything from Chaucer to Austen and all rare books in between. While Hanff has got to pay for the air mail and shipping fees, she is happy to do so as it opens a new world of books to her. What started as an enquiry becomes a twenty year correspondence with employees at the shop.

The main pen pal Hanff wrote to was an employee named Frank Doel. In time, she also wrote to his wife and neighbor as well as other employees at Marks and Company. At first they referred to each other by names of ma'am and sir, but gradually they grew to use familiar names Helene and Frank. Engaging in intelligent conversations about books and about their lives, Hanff became emotionally invested in the lives of the Marks and Company family. Each year she would send the staff gifts of hard to find rationed items as meats, eggs, sugar, and nylon stockings. For this, they were forever grateful, going out of their way to send Hanff any book she requested, even an extremely rare copy of the Complete Works of John Donne. While money did not allow her to travel, Hanff had an open invitation to visit London and stay as a guest of any of the shop employees. What had started as a simple letter morphed into a lifelong friendship.

The correspondence that Helene Hanff engaged in seemed as a precursor to goodreads as she discussed books with otherwise strangers on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Finding like minded readers from all over the world is one of the things I enjoy the most about goodreads, so I was drawn to Hanff and her quest to obtain British literature. Even though she was unable to visit London, Hanff's sincere writing left me with a smile as I envisioned her thrill of opening the letters and packages that emerged from a simple correspondence. With the majority of correspondence now done electronically, letter writing has become a lost art. Hanff's letters to Doel took me back to a simpler time, and that their relationship centered on books was only an added bonus.

4+ stars
...more

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Feb 13, 2009 Jeanette (Again) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: five-star-nonfiction, nonfiction, booky-books

"If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much."

This was my second reading of the book, and I'm adding a star to my original rating. I laughed a lot harder this time, and even got a little choked up near the end. I don't recall this much chortling, cackling, guffawing and snorting on my first time through. The contrast between Helene Hanff's brash American informality and Frank Doel's staid British professionalism is delightful. There's a certain charm in his p ...more

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Aug 21, 2017 Luffy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: page-turner, 5-star, superb-characterization, popular, non-fiction

The epistolary meanderings of Helene Hanff and Frank Dole are insightful, playful in their coyness, and progressive in their development. This is an actual correspondence gone awfully right.

There is a starkness of honesty in this correspondence. Yet the prose in the letters aren't quite as dry as might be feared. Like I said, the back and forth is progressive. There is definitely life in these letters.

This real occurrence happens after the second world war(the last three words of which is a fav ...more

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Oct 24, 2015 Glenn Sumi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-about-books, contemp-classics, non-fiction, favorites

After hearing about this book for years, I finally stumbled upon a $2 ex-libris copy earlier this week at a used book sale. And without pausing I bought it. How appropriate!

It consists of the correspondence, from the late 1940s until the late 1960s, between New York writer and bibliophile Helene Hanff and Frank Doel, an employee at Marks & Co. Booksellers at the eponymous address in London.

Hanff was a voracious, eclectic reader who couldn’t find good American editions of the books she wanted t After hearing about this book for years, I finally stumbled upon a $2 ex-libris copy earlier this week at a used book sale. And without pausing I bought it. How appropriate!

It consists of the correspondence, from the late 1940s until the late 1960s, between New York writer and bibliophile Helene Hanff and Frank Doel, an employee at Marks & Co. Booksellers at the eponymous address in London.

Hanff was a voracious, eclectic reader who couldn’t find good American editions of the books she wanted to read. Responding to an advertisement in a periodical, she wrote to Marks & Co., and began her two decades-long epistolary relationship with Doel.

Her chatty, witty and often teasing letters requesting books and Frank’s more conservative, straightlaced missives form the backbone of the work. As their long-distance, customer-bookseller relationship evolves, Hanff occasionally writes to other store employees, as well as Doel’s wife, the couple’s daughters and the family’s elderly neighbour.

What gradually emerges is a gentle and moving look at two kindred spirits united by their love of the printed word. Hanff’s descriptions of the physical books are so vivid I can practically smell and feel the sturdy covers and the thick, creamy pages. The book also touches on their differing cultures, Hanff’s writing characterized by frank forthrightness, Doel’s, although no less friendly, by a certain civility and politeness.

Their correspondence isn’t just about books, although there are some amusing, illuminating passages about Chaucer, Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen, John Donne and Laurence Sterne. Early on, Hanff also sends care packages of food and stockings to the bookstore, much-needed in a time of post-World War II rationing.

And there are subtle glimpses into history and the changing nature of society: bookstore employees emigrate to other countries to try their luck; the Doels save up money to buy their first used car; Queen Elizabeth II is crowned; Beatlemania descends on London.

But what I love most of all is the portrait that emerges of Hanff herself. A strong and independent single woman who would rather send cash in the mail than fuss with getting a money order, she starts out living in a tiny, cramped apartment and works her way up the publishing and radio drama worlds, drawing on much of her reading of literature (thanks to the packages from 84, Charing Cross Road) to create her plays.

What I also admire is how uncluttered this book is. There were other letters, but Hanff trusts the reader to do the work to connect the dots. By reading a “reply” we can intuit what’s being replied to. There are no baggy, self-important, italicized passages about what’s in the letters themselves. And the graceful ending is stunning in its understatement.

One more thought: Hanff and Doel’s comments about books and literature remind me of the Goodreads community I’ve found here. I likely will never meet (IRL as they say) the people whose reviews and updates I like and comment on, but that doesn’t mean our interactions aren’t profound, meaningful and lasting.

This is a book, for and about book lovers, to cherish.
...more

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Nov 17, 2017 Angela M rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Letters, literature, friendships, kindness and humor fill the pages of this small volume. It's a gift from Helene Hanff to anyone who loves books. Not much more I can say except that all book lovers should read it .

Long distance friendships and books - a lot like Goodreads .

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Nov 28, 2017 Esil rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

An easy 5 stars!

I listened to this lovely short audiobook. It's completely charming. The voices are perfect. And in an odd way it reminded me of what I love about Goodreads. Strangers connecting over their mutual love of books. Slowly the book focused repartee morphs into a real sense of affinity and frienship.

A bit of warmth to ease the dark cold days of November. A nice relief from the miserable state of world politics.

I'm late to this party, but I highly recommend it -- especially the audio.

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Feb 02, 2017 Annet rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: new-york, europe, very-british

A beautiful, sincere and humorous correspondence between a writer in New York (Helen) looking for unique books all the time and having them shipped over from Europe and a bookstore manager in London over the years.... Fun, nostalgic read with a smile.

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Feb 08, 2015 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Loved every single page of this wonderful little novel, told in letters. The lost art of letter writing, but amazing how much we can tell of the relationship between the author in New York and a bookstore in London. Requesting books to be sent to her she makes the acquaintance of Frank Dole, his wife, his neighbor and other employees of the bookstore. Starts out as a purely business relationship we can tell letter by letter as they become more friendly, discussing their families, friends, jobs a ...more

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Aug 22, 2008 Trevor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

I love this book and love the film they made of it too. It is sloppy and sweet and warm and, you know, just right. It is the sort of book one could read in an hour or two over a pot of tea on a cold winter's afternoon and just enjoy. Pure delight.

If you needed to be reminded that love of literature is as good a foundation of love of the world as any other 'religion', that the people we write to can be closer and dearer to us than those we see day after day - then this really is a book written to ...more

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May 04, 2018 Paul rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: letters

This book is a complete delight. It is not a love story or a romance, but a series of letters between two book lovers from the late 1940s to the late 1960s. Helene Hanff is a lively and outspoken New Yorker who is unable to get hold of decently bound books, especially older and slightly more obscure ones. She answers an ad and contacts Marks and Co at 84 Charing Cross Road. There Frank Doel, a very proper English bookseller responds and starts to find and send her books from the lists she sends. This book is a complete delight. It is not a love story or a romance, but a series of letters between two book lovers from the late 1940s to the late 1960s. Helene Hanff is a lively and outspoken New Yorker who is unable to get hold of decently bound books, especially older and slightly more obscure ones. She answers an ad and contacts Marks and Co at 84 Charing Cross Road. There Frank Doel, a very proper English bookseller responds and starts to find and send her books from the lists she sends. Hanff’s friendliness, outspokenness and sheer vivacity gradually breaks down Frank Doel’s reserve and a friendships develops. Hanff sends to London difficult to find items to London which was still in the throes of rationing (mainly foodstuffs, but also nylons for the female employees). Gradually we also hear the voices of some of the other employees, Frank’s wife Nora and their elderly next door neighbour. There is a warmth and humanity here and a solid friendship based on books; something which should warm all our hearts.
There is also, of course, the film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. My edition has a preface by Anne Bancroft (her husband, Mel Brooks, bought the film rights for her, so she could play Hanff) and an introduction by Juliet Stevenson. What is most moving of course is that Hanff and Doel never met and the book came along after his death in the late 1960s and was an immediate hit. There has also been a play and a TV adaptation. There is a new adaptation of the play touring the UK at present starring Stephanie Powers and Clive Francis.
I really did love this, it’s a meeting of bookish minds, something done by letter, which we can now do much more easily on sites like this. Hanff keeps threatening to visit, but never makes it:
“You better watch out, I’m coming over there in ’53 if Ellery is renewed. I’m gonna climb up that Victorian book-ladder and disturb the dust on the top shelves and everybody’s decorum.”
Hanff’s wit and irreverence are a constant delight:
“I have these guilts about never having read Chaucer but I was talked out of learning Early Anglo-Saxon / Middle English by a friend who had to take it for her Ph.D. They told her to write an essay in Early Anglo-Saxon on any-subject-of-her-own-choosing. “Which is all very well,” she said bitterly, “but the only essay subject you can find enough Early Anglo-Saxon words for is ‘How to Slaughter a Thousand Men in a Mead Hall’.”
A comment on the arrival of a new book:
“The day Hazlitt came he opened to “I hate to read new books,” and I hollered “Comrade!” to whoever owned it before me.”
And on buying books in general:
“It’s against my principles to buy a book I haven’t read, it’s like buying a dress you haven’t tried on.”
One of my favourites!
...more

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Sep 10, 2017 Jean-Luke rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

March 16, 2020,

Dear HH,

America (and possibly the world) has gone mad. Rationing is a word that would get you a black eye if you mentioned it while waiting in today's mile-long line at the supermarket. You would think Armageddon is upon us from the carts and carts of groceries people are pushing to their cars, leaving the rest to scrape the broken eggs from the floor in aisle Nine, where that fight between two shoppers just took place. (The carnage would surely have been much greater if toilet p ...more

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Feb 01, 2017 Britany rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: botn, mmd, 2017, books-to-film, bookriot, memoir, non-fiction, buddy-read

I've known about his little gem for so many years, waiting for a special moment to finally dive in. I just love books filled with mementos and letters. I grew up sorting cards and old mail at my grandmother's house to the PostMan Books and now a grown up letter book. Helene Hanff is an American writer desperate to fill her reading dreams with editions of books she has trouble finding in the US. She starts a correspondence with an English bookstore.

I ate up this book like a cat with a bowl of cr ...more

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Nov 15, 2019 Olive Fellows (abookolive) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites-2019, favorites-all-time

I loved it SO MUCH.

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May 14, 2012 ij rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: autobiography-memoir, group-read, books-about-books, non-fiction, 2014

This memoir was a great read. It consisted of letters primarily between Helene Hanff, the author, and Frank Doel, an employee of Marks and Company, Booksellers. The title of the book 84, Charing Cross Road was the address to the bookshop, in London. The letters started on October 5, 1949 and continued back and forth for almost twenty (20) years.

In the first letter, Ms. Hanff describes herself as a “poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books.” These books she thought to be too costly in New ...more

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May 07, 2019 Dem rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

An endearing little book and quick and easy read. I enjoyed it but not one for my favourite shelf.

I have wanted to read this book for years as it has such amazing review and I just never came across a hard copy but found an audible version and went with that. Not sure audible is the best format for a book where the content is a series of letters back and forth as they performance seemed quite repetitive. However I do love the “ old snail mail” format and have just one Aunt who still correspon ...more

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Nov 13, 2016 PattyMacDotComma rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: fans of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Shelves: aa, favourites-adult, aa-col

5★
If you love books and letters, this is the book for you! People have been interacting kind of anonymously for a long time, without dating apps or the internet. I used to hand write letters back and forth to friends I seldom saw – now it’s emails and posts, but same banter, bluster, shared triumphs and tears.

This is the most charming, funny, and touching book about a 20-year, long-distance correspondence which starts out as a relatively simple book order. Helene Hanff, a New York writer hersel ...more

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May 30, 2018 Melisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Lovely. Charming. A book lover’s book.

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Feb 23, 2012 Caroline rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star-books, auto-and-biog

I have just re-read this book for about the fifth time. I think it ought to be compulsory reading every three or so years, or it should be imbibed medicinally if one is feeling generally under the weather.

As everyone knows - it's the correspondence between the warm and bouncy American scriptwriter Helen Hanff, and the stuffy head buyer of an antiquarian bookshop in London called Frank Doel. Their correspondence spans from 1949 to 1969. Slowly, slowly, Hanff's warm letters melt Doel's English res ...more

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Jan 03, 2019 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read2019, books-on-books, audiobook, epistolary

Book 1 of 2019! I can't believe I'd never read this before. I was inspired by @hardcoverheartsblog (in Instagram) to readalong on January 1, but had to download the audio to play along.

I knew this was an epistolary account between a reader and someone at a bookstore, but I had a lot of misconceptions:
1. This is a romance
2. The letters are between two people
3. Everyone lives in the UK
4. This is a novel (no!)

It's a short, enjoyable read about books and readers, so in that vein it is somewhat of a ...more

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Sep 21, 2017 Vanessa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An all too brief but enjoyable and witty collection of letters of correspondence between Helene Hanff from N.Y City and the various staff at Marks & Co. bookshop trading in antiquarian books in London. Lovely, endearing relationships form and you come to love the developing friendships that occur over the 20 year timespan. It's a shame that we have lost the art of letter writing, such a wonderful idea for a book and it's no wonder this became so popular when it was first published. A charming li ...more

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Apr 19, 2013 Lynne King rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: definitely-to-read, books-libraries, us-authors, us-quthors, favourites-own

As soon as I came across this book on Goodreads and read the blurb, I could see that all the literary ingredients I look for in a book were there in this series of letters between two individuals. Consequently I had to purchase it.

Firstly, it was the personality of Helene Hanff, a Jewish writer in New York. I’ll just never tire of Jewish humor as it’s such a never-ending pleasure for me. Some of the “treasures” that pour from people’s mouths. As for New Yorkers, well words fail me in that regar ...more

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May 11, 2012 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I received this book in the mail (a surprise gift) -- so I read it 'on the spot'.

The book is only about 100 pages long --but a charming read (one I'm glad I read).

This is an older book (first published in 1970)....The year I graduated High School.

The author Helene Hanff, a freelance writer was living in New York City. She spent twenty years corresponding to a used book dealer in London. (they did not do this over the internet). ***SLOW MAIL***!
Though never meeting in person, they shared a comm ...more

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Apr 08, 2018 Victoria rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Delightful, charming and wistfully old fashioned. This chronicles the 20-year correspondence between the author and a British bookseller whom she relied on for obscure titles, a correspondence that blossomed into a warm and caring friendship. I saw the film version many years ago and always meant to read this very short epistolary and it did not disappoint.

Noteworthy little tidbit about this author and the impact of this book. The apartment where she lived in NYC has been named Charing Cross Hou ...more

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Jul 04, 2011 Paul Secor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-that-make-me-laugh, short-cuts, favorite-books, favorite-books-about-books, rereads

Recommended to anyone who truly loves books and reading or to anyone who still writes letters or enjoys reading other folks' letters. These letters are good ones and may even inspire you to write a few of your own.

Reread in June, 2020.

I pulled this off the shelf yesterday and read it (for probably the fourth time since I bought it 40 years ago) yesterday afternoon.

A bit of trivia at the outset: I had always assumed that Helene Hanff's first name was pronounced Heh-Lean. A few years ago, I saw a ...more

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Feb 16, 2018 Laysee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

84 Charing Cross Road chronicles a beautiful twenty-year relationship between an American reader of antiquarian books and Marks & Co. Booksellers, London. The latter ‘is the loveliest old shop straight out of Dickens’. It has very old grey oak shelves that smell of age and dust going up to the ceiling. This epistolary book contains the correspondence from 1949 to 1969 between Ms. Helene Hanff, a penurious writer who loves antiquarian books, and Frank Doel, the knowledgeable and efficient booksto 84 Charing Cross Road chronicles a beautiful twenty-year relationship between an American reader of antiquarian books and Marks & Co. Booksellers, London. The latter ‘is the loveliest old shop straight out of Dickens’. It has very old grey oak shelves that smell of age and dust going up to the ceiling. This epistolary book contains the correspondence from 1949 to 1969 between Ms. Helene Hanff, a penurious writer who loves antiquarian books, and Frank Doel, the knowledgeable and efficient bookstore manager, and later, his wife Nora and other staff members . Every letter is a joy to read.

It was lovely to witness the stiff and formal nature of the correspondence give way to warmth and affection as the correspondents develop a friendship across the miles. This quirky American with a lively wit and an infectious sense of humor is determined ‘to puncture that proper British reserve’. It takes three years before “Dear Madam” becomes “Dear Helene”. It made me laugh to read, “Now listen Frankie, it’s going to be a long cold winter and I babysit in the evenings and I need reading matter. Don’t sit around, go find me some books!” Helene, a writer of TV scripts and children’s history books, lives in a small apartment in a brown stone house in New York, and yet she generously sends food parcels (fresh eggs!) to the employees in Marks and Co., during those postwar food rationing years in the UK. Her thoughtfulness is greeted with profound gratitude and importunate invitation from her UK friends to come visit, what to Helene is, ‘the England of English Literature’.

Anyone who loves books will certainly identify with the rapturous thrills Helene gets when a rare book or an exquisitely bound edition makes its way to her. On receiving the first edition of John Henry’s Newman Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education, Helene writes this to Frank, “I never saw a book so beautiful. I feel vaguely guilty about owning it. All the gleaming leather and gold stamping and beautiful type belongs to the pine-panelled library of an English country home...” And on the ‘fellowship’ of second-hand books, Helene shares this precious thought: “I love inscriptions on fly leaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone had called my attention to.”

It surprises me a little that Helene seems to disdain fiction. She says unapologetically, “...I never can get interested in things that didn’t happen to people who never lived.” That is until she finally reads Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and in her next letter to Frank, confesses a change of heart and orders a copy. Soon she recounts, “P-and-P arrived looking exactly as Jane ought to look - soft leather, slim and impeccable.” Later she introduces a friend to P-and-P and reports “she has gone out of her mind for Jane Austen.” I had a big smile on my face reading these exchanges.

84 Charing Cross Road is pure delight. I had to buy a hard copy as no Kindle edition was available. It has been a while since I read a physical book whose pages I can flip back and forth with ease. This brings to mind what Helene says “..I never knew a book would be such a joy to the touch.” It sure is. 84 Charing Cross Road is a book lover’s book. It will also endear itself to any member of the Goodreads community. Highly recommended. ...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Srinivas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Every one

who likes to read books,
who likes to write about books,
who likes to talks about books,
who likes to buy 2nd hand books,
who likes the lavish smell of books,
who likes to sniff the pages before they buy books.

MUST read this book.

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Jun 13, 2014 Adina rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british, non-fiction, short

I wanted to read this little book since I first read its name and read the synopsis. It is a story of a friendship, a sweet little collection of letters between an American script writer and the employees of a London secondhand bookstore. Since I first set foot on London soil in 2005, I’ve been visiting the second hand bookstores (one in particular) from Charing Cross Road almost every year. I have to admit that I felt a bit of nostalgia while reading.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie S ...more

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Aug 21, 2011 Aldrin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The present is an undeniably significant time in the realm of books. It’s a time when the nature and limits of books are being redefined so aggressively that to enclose the very term in scare quotes does not necessarily amount to a vagary in punctuation. The mostly static evolution of books is now approaching a flash point, that is, if it hasn’t yet been reached. The signs are as clear as Truman Capote’s favorite Russian vodka. Accompanied by the consistent rise in the sales of books in their va The present is an undeniably significant time in the realm of books. It’s a time when the nature and limits of books are being redefined so aggressively that to enclose the very term in scare quotes does not necessarily amount to a vagary in punctuation. The mostly static evolution of books is now approaching a flash point, that is, if it hasn’t yet been reached. The signs are as clear as Truman Capote’s favorite Russian vodka. Accompanied by the consistent rise in the sales of books in their various electronic iterations, Kindles, iPads, and Nooks are taking the place of the codex format in the hands of readers. Bookstores, if not downsizing their personnel or reducing their floor area, are shutting down their operations entirely. It’s a terribly different landscape from that of two, three, or four decades ago, when books were books (prefixes like “e-” or “enhanced” and suffixes like “pdf” and “epub” were not yet conceived and required as qualifiers), bookstores were brick-and-mortar establishments run by real people, and a certain book lover had to write to a bookseller thousands of miles away just to get the books that she wanted.

The present is a setting into which the reappropriation of the essential elements of the story of “84, Charing Cross Road,” one of the most beloved books about books and people who love them, is virtually impossible. This nonfiction book, first published in 1970, is very much a product of its time. Formally it’s a collection of letters between a struggling freelance writer in New York City and a used bookstore employee in London. Letters! Do people even send those—old-fashioned snail mail—anymore? Surely e-mail, Twitter, or telepathic grunting hasn’t completely replaced it? LOL colon capital P. And a used bookstore? In this day and age, more and more readers are wont to ditch a visit to a nearby bookstore, used or not, knowing they could easily get a copy of a book they want with just a click of their computer mouses or a tap on their touchscreen devices.

Helene Hanff, the person at the American side of the transatlantic correspondence that forms the spine of “84, Charing Cross Road,” had neither a computer mouse (unless it’s of the rodent sort, to which her modest apartment might have proved comfortable) nor a touchscreen device. What she had in the way of an input mechanism and a processor was her trusty typewriter, on which she wrote on the 5th of October 1959 a letter of inquiry to the staff of Marks & Co., a used bookstore located at 84, Charing Cross Road, London, England. “I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions, or in Barnes & Noble’s grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies,” she explained. “I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have clean second-hand copies of any of the books on the list, for no more than $5.00 each, will you consider this a purchase order and send them to me?”

Thus began the exceptional long-distance friendship between Hanff and Frank Doel, the chief agent of the bookstore who rigorously responded to her inquiries. Indeed, there were many more inquiries beyond Hanff’s initial wishlist, for books ranging from the popular to the obscure. Her incessant badgering about the books that Doel had so far failed to send coupled with his meek apologies for his apparent idleness is the source of most of this book’s lighthearted humor. It’s often entertaining to flip from a page containing Hanff’s jocular remarks into another with Doel’s shy reply. On one occasion she, having been hired as a scriptwriter for a murder mystery TV series where “all the suspects and corpses are cultured,” asked whether he would want to be “the murderer or the corpse” in an episode she’d like to do “about the rare book business in his honor.” A month and a half later he replied, “Your Ellery Queen scripts sound rather fun. I wish we could have the chance of seeing some of them on our TV over here—it wants livening up a bit (our TV I mean, not your script).” Whereas Hanff was of frank and lively disposition, Doel’s manner, as behooved his Britishness, was formal and precise, especially at first and sometimes to a fault. “I keep trying to puncture that proper British reserve,” Hanff wrote in a letter to one of Frank’s co-workers, “if he gets ulcers I did it.”

That letter was one of the many others which were not addressed to Doel but were included in the collection as they greatly supplemented the two main correspondents’ bookish banter. Soon after the first few exchanges between Hanff and Doel, other employees of Marks & Co. and members of his family became pen pals with her and offered their thoughts on a variety of topics, including the British royalty, postwar deprivation, Yorkshire pudding, and, of course, Doel himself. Also included were several letters from Hanff’s friend, Maxine, who had the chance to visit the bookstore at 84, Charing Cross Road: “It is the loveliest old shop straight out of Dickens, you would go absolutely out of your mind over it.” To be sure, Hanff did go out of her mind in her reply to Maxine, where she expressed her deep longing to see and smell the shop herself.

Redolent of obsolescence (or is that nostalgia?) from the standpoint of a twenty-first century citizen (or netizen, as it were), the correspondence between Hanff and the people of 84, Charing Cross Road, which lasted for an amazing two decades, is above all symptomatic of a condition that was in full sway then among the more dedicated of readers but is arguably less prevailing now in the digital era: bibliophilia. “I never knew a book could be such a joy to touch,” Hanff wrote a month after sending out her first letter, upon the arrival of a proper match for one of the items in her list. It’s titled “Virginibus Puerisque,” the first collection of essays by Robert Louis Stevenson, which, Hanff told Doel, was “so fine it embarrasses my orange-crate bookshelves, I’m almost afraid to handle such soft vellum and heavy cream-colored pages,” and was in stark contrast to “the dead-white paper and stiff cardboardy covers of American books.” Ah, the visual, tactile, and sometimes olfactory pleasures of book porn. Imagine a present-day Hanff experiencing a similar high from caressing and staring at her Kindle after successfully downloading the same Stevenson collection in e-book format from Project Gutenberg for much less than $5 (read: free). You can’t. You just can’t, for there are “book” lovers, and then there are book lovers. And Hanff, belonging to the latter sort, would sooner defenestrate the Kindle than read a “book” on it. ...more

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Jun 15, 2013 Madeleine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: head-in-the-clouds-nose-in-a-book, our-libeary, 2013, message-from-the-bottle

In the interest of full disclosure (or because putting myself on display via book reviews is a more palatable vehicle for my innermost self these days than, say, the more self-respectingly private venue of a journal is), I originally wrote this review as a series of letters between 84, Charing Cross Road and me, but it was one of those times when emulating the format just wasn't working (for one thing, I kept writing the book's responses far too snarkily, which I think may have been the result o In the interest of full disclosure (or because putting myself on display via book reviews is a more palatable vehicle for my innermost self these days than, say, the more self-respectingly private venue of a journal is), I originally wrote this review as a series of letters between 84, Charing Cross Road and me, but it was one of those times when emulating the format just wasn't working (for one thing, I kept writing the book's responses far too snarkily, which I think may have been the result of being rubbed the wrong way by Ms. Hanff early on in the book, probably because she seems far more at ease with busting out the joshing jocularity during the fledgling stages of a friendship than I will ever be).

In that same vein, you probably also need to know it is with a mug of bright red tea on one side and a bottle of even redder wine on the other as Zep serenades me across the decades through my computer speakers (which, at a certain point, will be reduced to me playing my two favorite songs over and over until I'm satisfied enough to let the album end) that I am sitting here trying to formulate something vaguely resembling a proper tribute to a book that is, at its heart, a love letter to the bonds that are born of a shared love of reading.

Is there a more perfect book than 84, Charing Cross Road to discuss on a site that has led so many of us to friendships that began with books? How many casual comments or hesitant pushes of the "add as a friend" or "follow reviews" buttons were disguised as auspicious beginnings to an ever-deepening bond with someone you may never meet face-to-face but consider a close friend? How many countless times have we reaped the real-life benefits -- be it a change of mood for the better over some well-timed kind words or the always welcome surprise of a mailed package of books -- of the digital realm because of the connections we've made on this site?

What begins with a poor writer's quest to feed her lust for antiquated book becomes a volley of letters and exchanging of goods across the pond as Helene Hanff and the staff of a London bookstore forge the kind of close-knit kinship I've never even had with my own family. While Hanff's early letters did not endear her to me at all, I realized the fault was probably my own by the time her first shipment of foodstuffs made its way to her ration-constricted pen-pals at Marks & Co. And that's about when I realized this book was going to tell me a little somethin'-somethin' about how actions have a way of speaking louder than words and that maybe I ought to ignore the little judgmental voice in my head that just loves to run its hypothetical mouth.

Because there is a current of fondness that is just rushing through these letters that transcends distance and time and circumstance and is just impossible to ignore as the epistolary narrative subtly betrays just how much platonic love and friendly admiration exist among Hanff, her primary writing buddy Frank, his wife and the coming-and-going cast of characters who help keep the bookshop running.

The ongoing disappointment of Hanff's many thwarted attempts to visit London and her long-distance friends is what resonated the most poignantly with me, as I am all too familiar of how the best-laid plans seem to fall apart spectacularly at the least opportune times. There is a point when some of Hanff's hometown chums travel abroad and wind up at Marks & Co., only to find themselves "nearly mobbed" once they mentioned their common comrade to the shop's staff. Not too long after that, a letter lobbed to Hanff from the usually reserved Frank contains the line "... one more summer will bring us every American tourist but the one we want to see" and I very nearly dissolved into a puddle. If I hadn't already been charmed by the folks populating this charming testament to how the longevity of friendships is not dictated by proximity but rather by personality, that would have been the line that both swayed and slayed me.

The sweetness of these letters is not tainted by a saccharine sentimentality, and Hanff's earnest pursuit of good reads remains unmarred by pretentious showmanship. It is, actually, not entirely unlike what I imagine what would happen if one were to follow the course of a GR-forged correspondence across two decades, only that I hope you folks are all still around to reap the royalty benefits by then. Because I am half a bottle of wine poorer than I was when I began this "review," I can now safely use this book as an excuse to sloppily profess my love for you guys before passing out as inelegantly as possible. Consider this my drunk-dialed midnight confession of affection to you all, which, I think, is exactly why a book like this exists in the first place. ...more

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Dec 04, 2017 Pradnya K. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, 2017, novella, correspondence

I was browsing through the books, stumbled across it, got curious to know what hides behind this address and read the first letter. Then read the second with amusement. Then third with curiosity. By the fourth letter I was completely drown into it.

It's a story of an American lady who orders books from a used books bookstore in London at the address 84, Charing Cross Road. The correspondence between her and the employees from the bookstore over twenty years was published as a book and got undream I was browsing through the books, stumbled across it, got curious to know what hides behind this address and read the first letter. Then read the second with amusement. Then third with curiosity. By the fourth letter I was completely drown into it.

It's a story of an American lady who orders books from a used books bookstore in London at the address 84, Charing Cross Road. The correspondence between her and the employees from the bookstore over twenty years was published as a book and got undreamed-of publicity. It starts with her letter in response to the advertising which says the book shop deals in antiquarian books. The author, Helena writes that the antiquarian books are costly and she cannot afford them but if they have her requested books within her budget she'd like to buy them. She receives some of the books and pays by enclosing money in the letter itself. The correspondence starts here and we get to know a reader with distinct taste in literature, her life, about her assignments as a scriptwriter and a lot more. She sends some gifts, mostly eatables, to London as she learns that these things are rationed in London. The staff at the bookstore Marks & Co. especially one named Frank Doel replies her letters. Soon, one by one, most of them write replies, and Helena get to know more about them. Though the letters are filed in the bookstore, they soon break the famous British reserve and what a treat it is to read them! They are full of friendly humor, wit, trust and kindness.

“I feel vaguely guilty about owning it. All that gleaming leather and gold stamping and beautiful type belongs in the pine-paneled library of an English country home; it wants to be read by the fire in a gentleman’s leather easy chair—not on a secondhand studio couch in a one-room hovel in a broken-down brownstone front."
Doesn't it give a good account of one's personality?

I had a penfriend; we exchanged letters through post when internet had yet to enter the daily lives in India. I always received a lot of letters from other friends but this one I hadn't met then. We had a common friend and my pen friend always read my letter. One day she wrote a note, asking can we be penfriends? I was so delighted to read it. It's a completely different thing to know people, by letters. Of course, these days messengers are quite common and we meet many people over social media and later meet them in real life. It's just that they don't hold the charm of old snailmail and waiting for them.

This is a novella one would finish in a couple of hours. But in that short duration it makes you smile, fills your heart with pleasure, makes you respond to the kindness, takes you to the old days where reading by fireplace was not a rarity, and brings tears to your eyes bidding final goodbyes to the writers. ...more

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About Helene Hanff

Helene Hanff

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Helene Hanff (April 15, 1916–April 9, 1997) was an American writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is best known as the author of the book 84 Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a play, teleplay, and film of the same name.

Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Y ...more

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84 Charing Cross Road / The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

Q's Legacy: A Delightful Account of a Lifelong Love Affair with Books

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“I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to "I hate to read new books," and I hollered "Comrade!" to whoever owned it before me.” — 204 likes

“I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.” — 155 likes

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