84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

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 & Noble's 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 sent them to me?


The letter is signed Helene Hanff. She sent it to Marks & Co. Booksellers, at 84 Charing Cross Road, London, England. The epistle is dated October 5, 1949. When Ms. Hanff says "over here" in her letter, she means New York City, which is where she lived at that time.

I copied the entire first letter because I desperately want to share the charm this book has and the exhilaration I felt while I was reading it. It's the kind of exhilaration one feels when meeting (or, in this case, reading about) a kindred soul--one who loves books and loves reading and goes to great lengths to acquire one's desired books. A real kindred soul, because this book is not fiction. The whole book is composed of the correspondence between Helene Hanff and the staff at Marks & Co. Booksellers.

I first fell in love with 84 Charing Cross Road way, way back, when I saw the movie. I was in college back then and they were showing it for an afternoon movie special. I sat, not intending to watch the entire thing (as I probably had a class to go to then), but I became entranced. Helene Hanff would write to Frank Doel, who took care of acquisitions at Marks & Co. He would find her the books she liked, she would read them and either love them or throw them on the wall, and she would write back about them, but still asking for more books.

It was 1949, and though Ms. Hanff calls herself a poor writer, the English were still having a harder time because of the rationing after the war. So, Ms. Hanff, though she might seem curmudgeony, periodically sends the staff at Marks & Co. a few creature comforts, such as meat, powdered eggs, stockings for the women, etc. Little things. This correspondence, this relationship, between Hanff and the people at 84 Charing Cross Road lasted for 20 years.

I think it's the romance of it all that I loved and still love. It's not so much the romance between Hanff and Doel, which I think the film wanted to imply, hence colored my reading of the book, even though Doel did seem like a happily married man. It's the romance of the post: of asking for and receiving books, of exchanging letters and getting to know each other's lives even if the relationship is meant to be business-like. It's the romance of old books and the hunt for them: of going with Frank Doel as he acquires treasures from families' libraries--beautiful cloth-bound, leatherbound books--and sends them to someone whom he knows collects them out of love and will actually read them. It's the romance of human kindness and warmth across distances: of Hanff reaching out to the people at Marks & Co, and the people at Marks & Co. becoming her friends.

It's also the romance of hankering after the place of your dreams and struggling to get there. Hanff always spoke and wrote about going to England herself, of seeing the Tower of London, of walking where Pepys and Shakespeare walked. And, of course, of visiting Marks & Co. personally. But in those 20 years she was corresponding with them, she never made it. She sent notes, gifts, and even friends there. They brought back news. But she could only live vicariously through them, envious, but not bitter.

I rooted for her to go there, both while watching the movie and reading the book. The book, however, does not show that she made it there. The movie does. So, in the last scene, where she looks googly-grinned and wide-eyed at London, I was happy for her because I was there too, vicariously. I've never been to England, and I can imagine what it must be like to finally be in a place you've always dreamed of. She made it. I have yet to. But, if she could wait 20 years, then I suppose I could, too. And, like her, I will have to subsist on a steady diet of books from both English (I'm looking at you, Book Depository. Yes, I smell your books when they get here, just to see if I can breathe English air.) and non-English booksellers. Yes, I order books just so I can experience the thrill of getting books via mail. Unfortunately, there's no kind Mr. Doel for me. But Twitter will do nicely, I guess.

Anyway, if it's not painfully obvious yet, I do recommend this book to anyone who's a reader and a  lover of books. I recommend the movie, too. Here's the trailer, though it's not as polished as the current movie trailers we now have. However, if you're that curious, check out this link for the first 9 minutes of the movie. Oh, almost forgot. Helene Hanff is played wonderfully by Anne Bancroft, and Frank Doel is a younger Anthony Hopkins, with whom I fell in love. Sigh.