Helene Hanff's 1970 book, 84, Charing Cross Road is an epistolary gem. The correspondence, which has since formed the basis of a film, is largely between the acerbic Hanff, a struggling and periodically successful scriptwriter (usually for TV) based in New York and Frank Doel, one of the senior employees of a bookshop, Marks & Co., of the Charing Cross Road.
Hanff is remarkably literate enjoying, indeed needing, those books that would have appeared on a list of the 100 books one should have read, a century ago. She also wants good copies and as each appears, throws out books she perceives as either poor or worthless never, apparently, expanding her collection beyond the one set of bookshelves she has in her apartment.
The story is lifted by three elements - the jokey, aggressive style that Miss Hanff employs when writing to Marks & Co. and the slow development of confidence in reply that the naturally polite and somewhat nervous Doel adopts; the building of the transAtlantic friendship, still by letter, between Hanff and members of Doel's family as well as other inmates of the bookshop; and, over this, the background of America and England just after the Second World War epitomized by the plenty enjoyed by the former and the still rationed restrictions afflicting the latter - these are brought into sharp focus by the food parcels (and nylons) that Hanff sends across either as a thank you for a first edition John Henry Newman, or for birthdays, Christmas or to help celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.
84 Charing Cross Road is very short and though I've read it at least four times, it was only on the last occasion that I genuinely understood the timescale it covers. Hanff sends her first letter on 5th October, 1949 and receives her last, twenty years later as London has moved into the Swinging Sixties. Also a lot of the correspondence is missing, lost or has been edited out to create pace and, if the latter, very successfully.
A continuing theme is the often long gaps between Hanff's request for specific books and the ability of Marks & Co to supply them. These result in some sharp rebukes from the New York side of the relationship:
"SLOTH: i could ROT over here before you'd send me anything to read. i oughta run straight down to brentano's which i would if anything i wanted was in print."
or
"Dear Speed - You dizzy me rushing Leigh Hunt and the Vulgate over here whizbang like that. You probably don't realize it, but it's hardly more than two years since I ordered them. You keep going at this rate and you're gonna give yourself a heart attack."
on the other hand, when something fine turns up, the pleasure is palpable:
"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."
But woe betide Marks & Co if an edition is not up to scratch:
"WHAT KIND OF A PEPYS' DIARY DO YOU CALL THIS? this is not pepys' diary, this is some busybody editor's miserable collection of EXCERPTS from pepys' diary may he rot. i could just spit."
Only Hanff appears in the inverted commas above primarily because her prose is that much more quotable. The English side of the equation, however, does supply a fine balance and one which is accented by the building desire that Hanff has to visit Charing Cross Road and to see literary London, and of the Marks & Co. family to accommodate her.
The visit never takes place - there's always some reason, a move to a new apartment, the cost of dentistry - but, in reality one begins to get the impression that Hanff is fearful of having her illusions broken. Friends of hers visit, and report back with enthusiasm, but never the lady herself. And then it's too late:
"Dear Miss. I have just come across the letter you wrote to Mr Doel on the 30th of September last, and it is with great regret that I have to tell you that he passed away on Sunday the 22nd of December [1968]. ... He had been with the firm for over forty years and his passing came as a very great shock to Mr Cohen, particularly coming so soon after the death of Mr Marks. ... Do you still wish us to try to obtain the Austens for you?"
I'll leave the last words (coming from the book's penultimate letter), to Helene Hanff writing to an American friend of hers about to embark for London. For me, at least, this is tear-jerking stuff:
"But I don't know, maybe it's just as well I never got there. I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets. I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking for the England of English literature, and he nodded and said: 'It's there'.
"Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. Looking around the rug one thing's for sure: it's here.
"The blessed man who sold me all my books died a few months ago. And Mr Marks who owned the shop is dead. But Marks & Co. is still there. If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much."
So do I.
84 Charing Cross Road, originally pub by Grossman, 1970. My copy pub by Penguin, 97pp.
Hanff is remarkably literate enjoying, indeed needing, those books that would have appeared on a list of the 100 books one should have read, a century ago. She also wants good copies and as each appears, throws out books she perceives as either poor or worthless never, apparently, expanding her collection beyond the one set of bookshelves she has in her apartment.
The story is lifted by three elements - the jokey, aggressive style that Miss Hanff employs when writing to Marks & Co. and the slow development of confidence in reply that the naturally polite and somewhat nervous Doel adopts; the building of the transAtlantic friendship, still by letter, between Hanff and members of Doel's family as well as other inmates of the bookshop; and, over this, the background of America and England just after the Second World War epitomized by the plenty enjoyed by the former and the still rationed restrictions afflicting the latter - these are brought into sharp focus by the food parcels (and nylons) that Hanff sends across either as a thank you for a first edition John Henry Newman, or for birthdays, Christmas or to help celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.
84 Charing Cross Road is very short and though I've read it at least four times, it was only on the last occasion that I genuinely understood the timescale it covers. Hanff sends her first letter on 5th October, 1949 and receives her last, twenty years later as London has moved into the Swinging Sixties. Also a lot of the correspondence is missing, lost or has been edited out to create pace and, if the latter, very successfully.
A continuing theme is the often long gaps between Hanff's request for specific books and the ability of Marks & Co to supply them. These result in some sharp rebukes from the New York side of the relationship:
"SLOTH: i could ROT over here before you'd send me anything to read. i oughta run straight down to brentano's which i would if anything i wanted was in print."
or
"Dear Speed - You dizzy me rushing Leigh Hunt and the Vulgate over here whizbang like that. You probably don't realize it, but it's hardly more than two years since I ordered them. You keep going at this rate and you're gonna give yourself a heart attack."
on the other hand, when something fine turns up, the pleasure is palpable:
"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."
But woe betide Marks & Co if an edition is not up to scratch:
"WHAT KIND OF A PEPYS' DIARY DO YOU CALL THIS? this is not pepys' diary, this is some busybody editor's miserable collection of EXCERPTS from pepys' diary may he rot. i could just spit."
Only Hanff appears in the inverted commas above primarily because her prose is that much more quotable. The English side of the equation, however, does supply a fine balance and one which is accented by the building desire that Hanff has to visit Charing Cross Road and to see literary London, and of the Marks & Co. family to accommodate her.
The visit never takes place - there's always some reason, a move to a new apartment, the cost of dentistry - but, in reality one begins to get the impression that Hanff is fearful of having her illusions broken. Friends of hers visit, and report back with enthusiasm, but never the lady herself. And then it's too late:
"Dear Miss. I have just come across the letter you wrote to Mr Doel on the 30th of September last, and it is with great regret that I have to tell you that he passed away on Sunday the 22nd of December [1968]. ... He had been with the firm for over forty years and his passing came as a very great shock to Mr Cohen, particularly coming so soon after the death of Mr Marks. ... Do you still wish us to try to obtain the Austens for you?"
I'll leave the last words (coming from the book's penultimate letter), to Helene Hanff writing to an American friend of hers about to embark for London. For me, at least, this is tear-jerking stuff:
"But I don't know, maybe it's just as well I never got there. I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets. I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking for the England of English literature, and he nodded and said: 'It's there'.
"Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. Looking around the rug one thing's for sure: it's here.
"The blessed man who sold me all my books died a few months ago. And Mr Marks who owned the shop is dead. But Marks & Co. is still there. If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much."
So do I.
84 Charing Cross Road, originally pub by Grossman, 1970. My copy pub by Penguin, 97pp.
