84 Charing Cross Road Read online

  If you’re curious about Frank, he’s in his late thirties, quite nice-looking, married to a very sweet Irish girl, I believe she’s his second wife.

  Everyone was so grateful for the parcel. My little ones (girl 5, boy 4) were in Heaven—with the raisins and egg I was actually able to make them a cake!

  I do hope you don’t mind my writing. Please don’t mention it when you write to Frank.

  With best wishes,

  Cecily Farr

  P.S. I shall put my home address on the back of this in case you should ever want anything sent you from London.

  C.F.

  14 East 95th St.

  April 10, 1950

  Dear Cecily—

  And a very bad cess to Old Mr. Martin, tell him I’m so unstudious I never even went to college. I just happen to have peculiar taste in books, thanks to a Cambridge professor named Quiller-Couch, known as Q, whom I fell over in a library when I was 17. And I’m about as smart-looking as a Broadway panhandler. I live in moth-eaten sweaters and wool slacks, they don’t give us any heat here in the daytime. It’s a 5-story brownstone and all the other tenants go out to work at 9 A.M. and don’t come home till 6—and why should the landlord heat the building for one small script-reader/writer working at home on the ground floor?

  Poor Frank, I give him such a hard time, I’m always bawling him out for something. I’m only teasing, but I know he’ll take me seriously. I keep trying to puncture that proper British reserve, if he gets ulcers I did it.

  Please write and tell me about London, I live for the day when I step off the boat-train and feel its dirty sidewalks under my feet. I want to walk up Berkeley Square and down Wimpole Street and stand in St. Paul’s where John Donne preached and sit on the step Elizabeth sat on when she refused to enter the Tower, and like that. A newspaper man I know, who was stationed in London during the war, says tourists go to England with preconceived notions, so they always find exactly what they go looking for. I told him I’d go looking for the England of English literature, and he said:

  “Then it’s there.”

  Regards—

  Helene Hanff

  Marks & Co., Booksellers

  84, Charing Cross Road

  London, W.C.2

  20 September 1950

  Miss Helene Hanff

  14 East 95th Street

  New York 28, New York

  U.S.A.

  Dear Miss Hanff,

  It is such a long time since we wrote to you I hope you do not think we have forgotten all about your wants.

  Anyway, we now have in stock the Oxford Book of English Verse, printed on India paper, original blue cloth binding, 1905, inscription in ink on the flyleaf but a good secondhand copy, price $2.00. We thought we had better quote before sending, in case you have already purchased a copy.

  Some time ago you asked us for Newman’s Idea of a University. Would you be interested in a copy of the first edition? We have just purchased one, particulars as follows:

  NEWMAN (JOHN HENRY, D.D.) Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education, Addressed to the Catholics of Dublin. First edition, 8 vo. calf, Dublin, 1852. A few pages a little age-stained and spotted but a good copy in a sound binding. Price—$6.00

  In case you would like them, we will put both books on one side until you have time to reply.

  With kind regards,

  Yours faithfully,

  Frank Doel

  For MARKS & CO.

  14 East 95th St.

  September 25 1950

  he has a first edition of Newman’s University for six bucks, do I want it, he asks innocently.

  Dear Frank,

  Yes, I want it. I won’t be fit to live with myself. I’ve never cared about first editions per se, but a first edition of THAT book—!

  oh my.

  i can just see it.

  Send the Oxford Verse, too, please. Never wonder if I’ve found something somewhere else, I don’t look anywhere else any more. Why should I run all the way down to 17th St. to buy dirty, badly made books when I can buy clean, beautiful ones from you without leaving the typewriter? From where I sit, London’s a lot closer than 17th Street.

  Enclosed please God please find $8. Did I tell you about Brian’s lawsuit? He buys physics tomes from a technical bookshop in London, he’s not sloppy and haphazard like me, he bought an expensive set and went down to Rockefeller Plaza and stood in line and got a money order and cabled it or whatever you do with it, he’s a businessman, he does things right.

  the money order got lost in transit.

  Up His Majesty’s Postal Service!

  HH

  am sending very small parcel to celebrate first edition, Overseas Associates finally sent me my own catalogue.

  Marks & Co., Booksellers

  84, Charing Cross Road

  London, W.C.2

  2nd October, 1950

  Dear Helene,

  I brought the enclosed snapshots to the shop with me weeks ago, but we’ve been frightfully busy so have had no chance to send them on to you. They were taken in Norfolk where Doug (my husband) is stationed with the RAF. None of them very flattering of me, but they are the best we have of the children and the one of Doug alone is very good.

  My dear, I do hope you get your wish to come to England. Why not save your pennies and come next summer? Mummy and Daddy have a house in Middlesex and would be delighted to put you up.

  Megan Wells (secretary to the bosses) and I are going on a week’s holiday to Jersey (Channel Islands) in July. Why don’t you come with us and then you could economize the rest of the month in Middlesex?

  Ben Marks is trying to see what I’m writing so shall have to close.

  Sincerely,

  Cecily

  14 East 95th St.

  October 15, 1950

  WELL!!!

  All I have to say to YOU, Frank Doel, is we live in depraved, destructive and degenerate times when a bookshop—a BOOKSHOP—starts tearing up beautiful old books to use as wrapping paper. I said to John Henry when he stepped out of it:

  “Would you believe a thing like that, Your Eminence?” and he said he wouldn’t. You tore that book up in the middle of a major battle and I don’t even know which war it was.

  The Newman arrived almost a week ago and I’m just beginning to recover. I keep it on the table with me all day, every now and then I stop typing and reach over and touch it. Not because it’s a first edition; I just never saw a book so beautiful. I feel vaguely guilty about owning it. All that gleaming leather and gold stamping and beautiful type belongs in the pine-panelled 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.

  I want the Q anthology. I’m not sure how much it was, I lost your last letter. I think it was about two bucks, I’ll enclose two singles, if I owe you more let me know.

  Why don’t you wrap it in pages LCXII and LCXIII so I can at least find out who won the battle and what war it was?

  HH

  P.S. Have you got Sam Pepys’ diary over there? I need him for long winter evenings.

  Marks & Co., Booksellers

  84, Charing Cross Road

  London, W.C.2

  1st November, 1950

  Miss Helene Hanff

  14 East 95th Street

  New York 28, New York

  U.S.A.

  Dear Miss Hanff,

  I am sorry for the delay in answering your letter but I have been away out of town for a week or so and am now busy trying to catch up on my correspondence.

  First of all, please don’t worry about us using old books such as Clarendon’s Rebellion for wrapping. In this particular case they were just two odd volumes with the covers detached and nobody in their right senses would have given us a shilling for them.

  The Quiller-Couch anthology, The Pilgrim’s Way, has been sent to you by Book Post. The balance due was $1.85 so
your $2 more than covered it. We haven’t a copy of Pepys’ Diary in stock at the moment but shall look out for one for you.

  With best wishes,

  Yours faithfully,

  F. Doel

  For MARKS & CO.

  Marks & Co., Booksellers

  84, Charing Cross Road

  London, W.C.2

  2nd February, 1951

  Miss Helene Hanff

  14 East 95th Street

  New York 28, New York

  U.S.A.

  Dear Miss Hanff,

  We are glad you liked the “Q” anthology. We have no copy of the Oxford Book of English Prose in stock at the moment but will try to find one for you.

  About the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, we happen to have in stock a volume of eighteenth century essays which includes a good selection of them as well as essays by Chesterfield and Goldsmith. It is edited by Austin Dobson and is quite a nice edition and as it is only $1.15 we have sent it off to you by Book Post. If you want a more complete collection of Addison & Steele let me know and I will try to find one.

  There are six of us in the shop, not including Mr. Marks and Mr. Cohen.

  Faithfully yours,

  Frank Doel

  For MARKS & CO.

  Eastcote

  Pinner

  Middlesex

  20–2–51

  Helene my dear—

  There are many ways of doing it but Mummy and I think this is the simplest for you to try. Put a cup of flour, an egg, a half cup of milk and a good shake of salt into a large bowl and beat altogether until it is the consistency of thick cream. Put in the frig for several hours. (It’s best if you make it in the morning.) When you put your roast in the oven, put in an extra pan to heat. Half an hour before your roast is done, pour a bit of the roast grease into the baking pan, just enough to cover the bottom will do. The pan must be very hot. Now pour the pudding in and the roast and pudding will be ready at the same time.

  I don’t know quite how to describe it to someone who has never seen it, but a good Yorkshire Pudding will puff up very high and brown and crisp and when you cut into it you will find that it is hollow inside.

  The RAF is still keeping Doug in Norfolk and we are firmly hoarding your Christmas tins until he comes home, but my dear, what a celebration we shall have with them when he does! I do think you oughtn’t to spend your money like that!

  Must fly and post this if you’re to have it for Brian’s birthday dinner, do let me know if it’s a success.

  Love,

  Cecily

  14 East 95th St.

  February 25, 1951

  Dear Cecily—

  Yorkshire Pudding out of this world, we have nothing like it, I had to describe it to somebody as a high, curved, smooth, empty waffle.

  Please don’t worry about what the food parcels cost, I don’t know whether Overseas Asso. is non-profit or duty-free or what, but they are monstrous cheap, that whole Christmas parcel cost less than my turkey. They do have a few rich parcels with things like standing rib-roasts and legs of lamb, but even those are so cheap compared with what they cost in the butcher shops that it kills me not to be able to send them. I have such a time with the catalogue, I spread it out on the rug and debate the relative merits of Parcel 105 (includes-one-dozen-eggs-and-a-tin-of-sweet-biscuits) and Parcel 217B (two-dozen-eggs-and-NO-sweet-biscuits), I hate the one-dozen egg parcels, what is two eggs for anybody to take home? But Brian says the powdered ones taste like glue. So it’s a problem.

  A producer who likes my plays (but not enough to produce them) just phoned. He’s producing a TV series, do I want to write for television? “Two bills,” he said carelessly, which it turned out means $200. And me a $40-a-week script-reader! I go down to see him tomorrow, keep your fingers crossed.

  Best—

  helene

  Marks & Co., Booksellers

  84, Charing Cross Road

  London, W.C.2

  4th April, 1951

  Helene dear—

  Your marvelous Easter parcels arrived safely and everyone is quite upset because Frank left the city on business for the firm the next morning and so hasn’t written to thank you, and of course no one else quite dares to write to Frank’s Miss Hanff.

  My dear, the meat! I really don’t think you should spend your money like that. It must have cost a packet! Bless you for your kind heart.

  Here comes Ben Marks with work so must close.

  Love,

  Cecily

  Earl’s Terrace

  Kensington High St.

  London, W.8

  5th April, 1951

  Dear Miss Hanff,

  This is just to let you know that your Easter parcels to Marks & Co. arrived safely a few days ago but have not been acknowledged as Frank Doel is away from the office on business for the firm.

  We were all quite dazzled to see the meat. And the eggs and tins were so very welcome. I did feel I must write and tell you how exceedingly grateful we all are for your kindness and generosity.

  We all hope that you will be able to come to England one of these days. We should do our best to make your trip a happy one.

  Sincerely,

  Megan Wells

  Tunbridge Road

  Southend-on-Sea

  Essex

  5th April, 1951

  Dear Miss Hanff:

  For nearly two years I have been working as a cataloguer at Marks & Co. and would like to thank you very much for my share-out in the parcels which you’ve been sending.

  I live with my great-aunt who is 75, and I think that if you had seen the look of delight on her face when I brought home the meat and the tin of tongue, you would have realized just how grateful we are. It’s certainly good to know that someone so many miles away can be so kind and generous to people they haven’t even seen, and I think that everyone in the firm feels the same.

  If at any time you know of anything that you would like sent over from London, I will be most happy to see to it for you.

  Sincerely,

  Bill Humphries

  Marks & Co., Booksellers

  84, Charing Cross Road

  London, W.C.2

  9th April, 1951

  Miss Helene Hanff

  14 East 95th Street

  New York 28, New York

  U.S.A.

  Dear Miss Hanff,

  I expect you are getting a bit worried that we have not written to thank you for your parcels and are probably thinking that we are an ungrateful lot. The truth is that I have been chasing round the country in and out of various stately homes of England trying to buy a few books to fill up our sadly depleted stock. My wife was starting to call me the lodger who just went home for bed and breakfast, but of course when I arrived home with a nice piece of MEAT, to say nothing of dried eggs and ham, then she thought I was a fine fellow and all was forgiven. It is a long time since we saw so much meat all in one piece.

  We should like to express our appreciation in some way or other, so we are sending by Book Post today a little book which I hope you will like. I remember you asked me for a volume of Elizabethan love poems some time ago—well, this is the nearest l can get to it.

  Yours faithfully,

  Frank Doel

  For MARKS & CO.

  CARD ENCLOSED WITH ELIZABETHAN POETS:

  To Helene Hanff, with best

  wishes and grateful thanks for

  many kindnesses, from all at

  84, Charing Cross Road, London.

  April, 1951.

  14 East 95th St.

  New York City

  April 16, 1951

  To All at 84, Charing Cross Road:

  Thank you for the beautiful book. I’ve never owned a book before with pages edged all round in gold. Would you believe it arrived on my birthday?

  I wish you hadn’t been so over-courteous about putting the inscription on a card instead of on the flyleaf. It’s the bookseller coming out in you all, you were afraid you’d decrease
its value. You would have increased it for the present owner. (And possibly for the future owner. I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages some one long gone has called my attention to.)

  And why didn’t you sign your names? I expect Frank wouldn’t let you, he probably doesn’t want me writing love letters to anybody but him.

  I send you greetings from America—faithless friend that she is, pouring millions into rebuilding Japan and Germany while letting England starve. Some day, God willing, I’ll get over there and apologize personally for my country’s sins (and by the time i come home my country will certainly have to apologize for mine).

  Thank you again for the beautiful book, I shall try very hard not to get gin and ashes all over it, it’s really much too fine for the likes of me.

  Yours,

  Helene Hanff

  Backstage

  London

  September 10, 1951