84 Charing Cross Road

by Helene Hanff

Juliet Stevenson (Introduction)

A TRUE STORY THAT HAS TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF THOUSANDS

'Unmitigated delight from cover to cover' DAILY TELEGRAPH

'A real-life love story . . . A timeless period piece. Do read it' WALL STREET JOURNAL

'Beguile an hour of your time and put you in tune with mankind' NEW YORK TIMES

This charming classic, first published in 1970, brings together twenty years of correspondence between Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in New York City, and a used-book dealer in London. Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a winsome, sentimental friendship based on their common love for books. Their relationship, captured so acutely in these letters, is one that will grab your heart and not let go.

• ISBN10: 1860498507
• ISBN13: 9781860498503
• Publish Date: 3 October 2002 (first published 1 January 1970)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Virago Press Ltd
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 240
• Language: English

Reviews

[remo]

Recopilación de la correspondencia a lo largo de los años (1949-1969) entre Helene Hanff, autora frustrada de obras de teatro para Broadway y superviviente a salto de mata como freelance en Nueva York, y los empleados de una librería de Londres, situada, claro está, en el 84 de Charing Cross Road.
Desde las primeras cartas, en las que la autora mete billetes de dólar en las cartas ante el horror de los libreros, mientras pide libros allá porque las ediciones de los EE.UU. son "versiones simplificadas hasta el exceso para niños de colegio", hasta las últimas, en las que casi forman una familia todos, vemos la evolución de una relación humana que es pura belleza.
Termina el libro, que en mi edición incluye además el "qué fue de los protagonistas", extractos del artículo de la Wikipedia que narran los años posteriores a la publicación del libro y la esquela de la autora (1916-1997), muchos años después de los hechos que aquí se narran, y digamos que el riesgo de quedarse sin lágrimas existe y su probabilidad es mayor que cero. Me ha encantado.

[bumblingbookworm]

This review was originally posted on The Bumbling Bookworm

What a quaint and lovely read this was!  This is an epistolary novel, comprised entirely of letters, and it charts the beginnings of a beautiful friendship and connection between Frank and Helene.  It takes place over a 20 year span, beginning in 1949, and I flew through it in about 20 minutes.  I laughed, I cried, I've never had a book evoke so many emotions in so few pages!  

These letters weren't written with the intention of one day being published, but I'm so glad they were.  The personality of each letter writer shone through in their writing - Helene's frankness and humour, Frank's more reserved nature, and a few others I won't spoil.  I wish it wasn't so short - there are big gaps between some of the letters and I suspect some of them were lost over the years, but I just wanted more.  Utterly delightful and charming, I highly recommend it!

[wcs53]

I picked this classic up at a library book sale recently and didn't want to see it get lost on a shelf unread. I never saw the movie adaptation that came out in the 80s, but remember thinking it would be a book worth reading. It definitely was and I read it in a couple of sittings on a Sunday afternoon with the Bears losing (again) to the Packers on in the background. Though the Bear game was entertaining enough, I have to admit that the book ended up being the better of the two!

This is a wonderful little book containing 20 years of correspondence between the author, Helene Hanff, in New York and a used-book dealer in London. At times it was very funny, at other times quite moving. Overall it was a very human book and it was interesting to see how the relationship developed over many years of letters. As I read I kept wondering if Hanff would ever get the opportunity to visit the store. I won't spoil it here as it is worth reading without knowing this information.

I would recommend this to anyone with a love of books and reading. It's not a long read, but is one that is definitely worthwhile.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

84 Charing Cross Road documents twenty-year of correspondences between Helene Hanff and Frank Doel. Helene was an American writer while Frank the chief buyer of Marks & Co, an antiquarian bookseller located at the eponymous address in London, England. Starting out as a request for obscure classics, the book follows the blossoming relationship with Helene and the people of Marks & Co. Followed by The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, a collection of diary entries of Helene’s trip to England and the tour of bookshops.

Helene noticed an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature and first contacted the shop in 1949. This started a beautiful love story found in this book, not between Helene and Frank but rather a love of books. This is the type of book you read if you are a book lover; it makes me wish I could correspond with a bookstore (or a book lover) about books. Can you imagine this happening with Amazon or Book Depository? Nowadays we have twitter (which I’m always on talking about my love of books) but 140 characters sometimes are not enough to say what you want to say.

I went into this book a little unsure, a collection of letters between a book lover and a bookseller, how great can this book really be? What I found was that the silver tongue and wit of Helene Hanff really made this book for me. You know that feeling in writing where you not sure if the person is being sarcastic or not, I started off wondering this but so found she had a wicked sense of humour and I’m so glad the people of Marks & Co never took offense (or they didn’t appear to). This might have been their (Frank Doel and the others that wrote to Helene) professional nature that slowly changed into a friendship, once they started to get to know each other and understood her sense of humour.

One of the major problems I had with this book is not really a problem but a personal preference, which has to do with grammar and formatting. I understand they tried to keep the writing the same as the letters but I wouldn’t mind if they fixed it a little to add punctuation and correct it. Another thing that throws me was the missing letters, I know things get lost but when you are absorbed in a conversation about a book (like Pride and Prejudice) it is disappointing to not know what happened.

The edition of 84 Charing Cross Road I borrowed from the library also came with The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. This is the travel diary of Helene Hanff’s time visiting London. Looking at details of this book the term ‘zesty memoir’ is mentioned a few times, but I felt it to be a disappointment in comparison. It was entertaining but it didn’t have the banter or wit I expected, it just felt like a step by step play of everything Helene did while visiting London. While these two books work as companion pieces The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street was too one sided for my taste. Think of it like a sequel, once you finish 84 Charing Cross Road you’ll probably want to know what happened on her trip to London.

84 Charing Cross Road has been made into a movie and a stage play; I’ve not seen them but I’m interested to see how this book translates into another medium. I love how the book is promoted with the line “so begins a love affair”; this is a love affair with books. I managed to write this entire review without mentioning this is an epistolary book that I feel the need to mention my achievement. Highly recommend that you get your hands on both novels and reading them, especially if you are a lover of books.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2014/01/18/84-charing-cross-road-by-helene-hanff/