Helene Hanff’s humorous and unedited opinions on everything from “cardboarddy” American published books to baseball are timeless. It is a love story of a kind which you will just have to investigate yourself to know what I mean. I love books like this that spark the imagination while providing an essential record of the times in which they lived. However, the letters between Frank Dole, proprietor at Marks & Company, and Helene, function like an artwork where a few essential lines allow the viewer to fill in the full portrait. Most of the letters are hilarious, others sad, but all dripping with the little details of lives during this period of history in the U.S.A.
Each one began to write Helene notes stuffed into the envelope with those of the proprietor, Frank Dole. She began to send packages filled with canned meats, dried eggs, and later, nylons to the women employees at the store. She had learned, from an English couple who lived in her building, that Londerers were under strict rationing of meat, eggs, and other commodities in post war England.
The shop employees became Helene’s friends over a 20-year period of correspondence. Based on the book of her letters to Marks & Company, a colorful, poignant story emerges about a starving New York screenwriter and Londoners recovering from the devastation of the war who became her friends through their love of literature. 84 Charing Cross Road is the title of it. Years ago I watched a lovely video about Helene Hanff, a New York script writer with a passion for antiquarian books.
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