84, Charing Cross Road (3 page)

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

Dearheart—

It is the loveliest old shop straight out of Dickens, you would go absolutely out of your mind over it.

There are stalls outside and I stopped and leafed through a few things just to establish myself as a browser before wandering in. It’s dim inside, you smell the shop before you see it, it’s a lovely smell, I can’t articulate it easily, but it combines must and dust and age, and walls of wood and floors of wood. Toward the back of the shop at the left there’s a desk with a work-lamp on it, a man was sitting there, he was about fifty with a Hogarth nose, he looked up and said “Good afternoon?” in a North Country accent and I said I just wanted to browse and he said please do.

The shelves go on forever. They go up to the ceiling and they’re very old and kind of grey, like old oak that has absorbed so much dust over the years they no longer are their true color. There’s a print section, or rather a long print table, with Cruikshank and Rackham and Spy and all those old wonderful English caricaturists and illustrators that I’m not smart enough to know a lot about, and there are some lovely old, old illustrated magazines.

I stayed about half an hour hoping your Frank or one of the girls would turn up, but it was one-ish when I went in, I gather they were all out to lunch and I couldn’t stay any longer.

As you see, the notices were not sensational but we’re told they’re good enough to assure us a few months’ run, so I went apartment-hunting yesterday and found a nice little “bed-sitter” in Knightsbridge, I don’t have the address here, I’ll send it or you can call my mother.

We have no food problems, we eat in restaurants and hotels, the best places like Claridge’s get all the roast beef and chops they want. The prices are astronomical but the exchange rate is so good we can afford it. Of course if I were the English I would loathe us, instead of which they are absolutely wonderful to us, we’re invited to everybody’s home and everybody’s club.

The only thing we can’t get is sugar or sweets in any form, for which I personally thank God, I intend to lose ten pounds over here.

Write me.

Love,
Maxine

Inside the shop—1970s

14 East 95th St.
September 15, 1951

Maxine, bless your golden heart, what a peachy description, you write better than I do.

I called your mother for your address, she said to tell you the sugar cubes and Nestle bars are on the way, I thought you were dieting?

I don’t like to sound bitter, but I would like to know what YOU ever did that the good Lord lets YOU browse around my bookshop while I’m stuck on 95th St. writing the TV “Adventures of Ellery Queen.” Did I tell you we’re not allowed to use a lipstick-stained cigarette for a clue? We’re sponsored by the Bayuk Cigar Co. and we’re not allowed to mention the word “cigarette.” We can have ashtrays on the set but they can’t have any cigarette butts in them. They can’t have cigar butts either, they’re not pretty. All an ashtray can have in it is a wrapped, unsmoked Bayuk cigar.

And you hobnobbing with Gielgud at Claridge’s.

Write me about London—the tube, the Inns of Court, Mayfair, the corner where the Globe Theatre stood, anything, I’m not fussy. Write me about Knightsbridge, it sounds green and gracious in Eric Coates’ London Suite. Or London Again Suite.

xxxx
hh

14 East 95th St.
October 15, 1951

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.

where is jan. 12, 1668, where his wife chased him out of bed and round the bedroom with a red-hot poker?

where is sir w. pen’s son that was giving everybody so much trouble with his Quaker notions? ONE mention does he get in this whole pseudo-book. and me from Philadelphia.

i enclose two limp singles, i will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN i will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT.

HH

P.S. Fresh eggs or powdered for Xmas? I know the powdered last longer but “fresh farm eggs flown from Denmark” have got to taste better. You want to take a vote on it?

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

20th October, 1951

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

Dear Miss Hanff,

First of all, let me apologize for the Pepys. I was honestly under the impression that it was the complete Braybrooke edition and I can understand how you must have felt when you found your favorite passages missing. I promise to look at the next reasonably priced copy that comes along, and if it contains the passage you mention in your letter I will send it along.

I am glad to say I have managed to dig out a few books for you from a private library that we have just bought. There is a Leigh Hunt which includes most of the essays you like, also a Vulgate New Testament which I hope will be O.K. I have also included a Dictionary to the Vulgate which you might find useful. There is also a volume of 20th century English essays, though it contains only one by Hilaire Belloc and nothing to do with bathrooms. Enclosed is our invoice for 17s 6d, or approximately $2.50, all that is due us on the books as you had a credit balance with us of nearly $2.00.

About the eggs—I have talked to the rest of the inmates here and we all seem to think that the fresh ones would be nicer. As you say, they would not last so long but they would taste so much better.

We are all hoping for better times after the Election. If Churchill and Company get in, as I think and hope they will, it will cheer everyone up immensely.

With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Frank Doel
For MARKS & CO.

14 East 95th St.
New York City
November 2, 1951

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 you’re gonna give yourself a heart attack.

that’s mean. You go to so much trouble for me and i never even thank you, i just needle you, it’s mean. I really am grateful for all the pains you take for me. I enclose three dollars, I’m sorry about the top one, I spilled coffee on it and it wouldn’t sponge off but I think it’s still good, you can still read it.

Do you carry hard-cover vocal scores, by any chance? Like Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Handel’s Messiah? I could probably get them here at Schirmer’s, but they’re 50 cold blocks from where I live so I thought I’d ask you first.

Congratulations on Churchill & Co., hope he loosens up your rations a little.

Is your name Welsh?

HH

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

7th December 1951

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

Dear Miss Hanff,

You will be glad to know that the two boxes of eggs and the tins of tongue have all arrived safely and once again we all wish to thank you most sincerely for your extreme generosity. Mr. Martin, one of the older members of our staff, has been on the sick list for some time and we therefore let him have the lion’s share of the eggs, one whole boxful in fact, and of course he was delighted to get them. The tins of tongue look very inviting and will be a welcome addition to our larders, and in my case will be put on one side for a special occasion.

I enquired at all the local music shops but was unable to get the
Messiah
or Bach’s
St. Matthew Passion
in stiff covers in clean, secondhand copies, and then I found they were available from the publisher in new editions. Their prices seemed a bit high, but I thought I had better get them and they have been sent by Book Post a few days ago, so should arrive any day now. Our invoice, total £1/10/=($4.20) is enclosed with the books.