Helene Hanff - 84, Charing Cross Road

ALSO BY HELENE HANFF
Apple of My Eye
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
Qs Legacy
Underfoot in Show Business

Introduction by ANNE BANCROFT

MOYER BELL LIMITED
MT.KISCO, NEW YORK

Published by Moyer Bell Limited

First published in the United States of America by Grossman Publishers. Copyright Helene Hanff, 1970. This edition reprinted by arrangement with Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from Moyer Bell Limited, Colonial Hill, Mt. Kisco, New York 10549 or 71 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3BN.

This edition 1991

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Hanff, Helene

84, Charing Cross Road / Helene Hanff ; Introduction by Anne Bancroft.

p. cm.

Reprint. Originally published: New York : Grossman Publishers, 1970. Correspondence between Helene Hanff and agents of Marks & Co., chiefly Frank Doel. 1. Hanff, HeleneCorrespondence. 2. Authors, American20th centuryCorrespondence. 3. Doel, FrankCorrespondence. 4. Booksellers and booksellingGreat BritainCorrespondence. I. Doel, Frank. II. Marks & Co. III. Title. IV. Title : Eighty-four, Charing Cross Road.

[PS3515.A4853Z485 1991]

818.5409dc20 91-14536

[B] CIP

ISBN 1-55291-054-0 (cl)

Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.

F.P.D.
In Memoriam

Im not a writer, but this book and its author mean enough to me that Im glad to venture a few words in celebration of its new edition.

Like the people who win our hearts, the books we come to love can introduce themselves in the strangest ways. Let me tell you about how I met 84, Charing Cross Road. Some years ago as I was sitting on the beach on Fire Island, a man strolling by approached me. I didnt know the fellow, so his exclamationIve just read something that would be perfect for you!took me by surprise.

The next day, as I sat in the same spot, he came my way again, this time with book in hand. His enthusiasm seemed so sincere I couldnt help but be intrigued. So soon as he was gone, I opened the small volume he had delivered and started to read. Thats how my romance with 84, Charing Cross Road began.

As many of you knowand many more, I hope, are about to find outits difficult, if not impossible to start this book without finishing it. The trail of Helene Hanffs correspondence with Frank Doel and his colleagues at Marks & Co. leads us, captivated, down one womans idiosyncratic path through English literature; along the way, our enjoyment in sharing her literary education is deepened by the human narrative her letters weave. This is a book which seems at first to be about other books, which of course it is, but as we get to know Helene, and through her, Frank and Nora Doel, and Cecily Farr and Megan Wells and the rest at 84 Charing Cross, we recognize that the books desired, located, sent and received are the happy vehicles for much else: conversation, friendship, affection, generosity, witin other words, for all the best things life can share with us.

Which brings me to just what it is about this slim book that means so much to me. The more I listened to Helenes distinctive, wry, and winning voice, the more I heard echoes in it of another voice, that of a friend Id been close to for many years, since, in fact, wed been students together. Much like Helene, this friend was enchanted by books in a way that animated his every word; what resonated between Helenes voice on the page before me and my friends in my memory, was the respect, need, and love for books that characterized their mutual passion. Sadly, at the time the wandering reader of Fire Island delivered 84, Charing Cross Road into my hands, I was mourning the death of this very friend. So all the while Helene was writing to Frank Doel about Pepys and Hazlitt and Stevenson and Q, her words were really talking to me about this dear friend of mine, giving them a poignancy that only enriched the extraordinary charms they already possessed.

Soon after, knowing of my attachment to this book, my husband did a wonderful thing, pursuing and acquiring the film rights to it and presenting them to me as an anniversary gift. Thats how I got to play Helene on screen, and to meet her in person. If I were a better writer, Id describe the occasion on which we all met the Queen Mother at a command performance of the movie; the image of Helene democratically offering her hand to royalty remains an indelible memory.

Now, I certainly didnt mean to pass myself off as a reader of the stature of Helene Hanff, nor even the beachcomber who dropped her book into my lap, but it seems to me that my experience with this lovely volume reveals an awful lot about what books provide: a way of reaching out across time and space to friends and strangers, and to the absent presences that play such a large part in all our lives. In the pages that follow youll recognize Helene reaching out to her beloved English authors and to the many friends in and about 84, Charing Cross that these long-dead writers introduced to her. What you wont recognize is the beachcomber speaking to me, or myself communicating with my late friend; but, believe me, there we are, right between the lines.

ANNE BANCROFT

14 East 95th St.
New York City
October 5, 1949

Marks & Co.
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C.2
England

Gentlemen:

Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print books. The phrase antiquarian booksellers scares me somewhat, as I equate antique with expensive. 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 & Nobles grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies.

I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have clean secondhand 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?

Very truly yours,
Helene Hanff
(Miss) Helene Hanff

Marks & Co., Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C.2

25th October, 1949

Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, New York
U.S.A.

Dear Madam,

In reply to your letter of October 5th, we have managed to clear up two thirds of your problem. The three Hazlitt essays you want are contained in the Nonesuch Press edition of his Selected Essays and the Stevenson is found in Virginibus Puerisque . We are sending nice copies of both these by Book Post and we trust they will arrive safely in due course and that you will be pleased with them. Our invoice is enclosed with the books.

The Leigh Hunt essays are not going to be so easy but we will see if we can find an attractive volume with them all in. We havent the Latin Bible you describe but we have a Latin New Testament, also a Greek New Testament, ordinary modern editions in cloth binding. Would you like these?

Yours faithfully,
FPD
For MARKS & CO.

14 East 95th St.
New York City
November 3, 1949

Marks & Co.
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C.2
England

Gentlemen:

The books arrived safely, the Stevenson is so fine it embarrasses my orange-crate bookshelves, Im almost afraid to handle such soft vellum and heavy cream-colored pages. Being used to the dead-white paper and stiff cardboardy covers of American books, I never knew a book could be such a joy to the touch.