In the collection's penultimate entry, Helene Hanff urges a tourist friend, 'If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me. No doubt their letters would have continued, but in 1969, the firm's secretary informed her that Frank Doel had died. Soon they're sharing news of Frank's family and Hanff's career. THEN i will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT.' Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas.

'i enclose two limp singles, i will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin. When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic-but unsure she'll ever conquer 'bilingual arithmetic.' By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. 84 Charing Cross Road Full-Length Play, Drama / 5f, 4m Helene Hanff, James Roose-Evans Adapted by James Roose Evans from the book by Helene Hanff 'Charming, charming, charming.A gently touching hands across the sea chronicle, sentimental in the best sense of the word.' - The New York Daily News 'Warm, moving, civilized. In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, 'The phrase 'antiquarian booksellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive.' Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover. It was published in 1970 and contains twenty years of correspondence that began in 1949 - a time when London was still dealing with post-war rationing and, to state. For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence. 84, Charing Cross Road is an absolutely delightful epistolary memoir made up of letters exchanged between NYC-based author Helene Hanff and an antiquarian bookseller in London.

Editorial Review 84, Charing Cross Road is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural difference, and imaginative sympathy.

84 Charing Cross Road. by Helene Hanff