Helene Hanff was an American author celebrated for her distinctive literary voice and profound affection for British literature. Her work, most famously captured in 84 Charing Cross Road, highlights the unique connection between reader and the written word. Hanff carved a career through plays, early television dramas, and eventually books that revealed her keen observations on life and letters. Her ability to weave personal narrative with a deep love for books makes her a cherished figure in American letters.
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street is Helene Hanff's charming travelogue about her trip to London, inspired by her friendship with a British bookseller. Embraced by locals, she offers a humorous outsider's view of Britain while exploring its literary heritage. It's a heartfelt tribute to England and the power of the written word.
When she’s invited to London for the English publication of her wildly successful book, 84 Charing Cross Road—in which she shares two decades of correspondence with Frank Doel, a British bookseller who became a dear friend—New York writer Helene Hanff is thrilled to realize a lifelong dream. The trip will be bittersweet, because she can’t help wishing Frank was still alive, but she’s determined to capture every moment of the journey.Helene’s time in London exceeds her wildest expectations. She visits landmarks like Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle; explores Shakespeare’s favorite pub, Dickens’s house, and the Oxford University courtyard where John Donne used to walk; and makes a host of new friends from all walks of life, who take her to the theater, introduce her to institutions like Harrod’s, and share with her their favorite corners of countryside.A love letter to England and its literary heritage, written by a Manhattanite who isn’t afraid to speak her mind (or tell a British barman how to make a real American martini), The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street is an endearing account of two wildly different worlds colliding; it’s an outsider’s witty, vibrant portrait of idiosyncratic British culture at its best, as well as a profound commentary about the written word’s power to sustain us, transport us, and unite us.
For six years Helene Hanff, author of 84 Charing Cross Road, made monthly broadcasts on BBC Radio's Woman's Hour. In five-minute vignettes she conveyed the ups and downs of life in a high-rise apartment building in the heart of New York City. This is a collection of those humorous and witty pieces.
This ebullient memoir chronicles the author's lifelong love of books, which began with Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's "The Art of Writing" and developed with works by Izaak Walton, Cardinal Newman, and Milton.
Here is the remarkable story of how Helene Hanff came to write 84, Charing Cross Road, and of all the things its success has brought her. Hanff recalls her serendipitous discovery of a volume of lectures by a Cambridge don, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. She devoured Q’s book, and, wanting to read all the books he recommended, began to order them from a small store in London, at 84, Charing Cross Road. Thus began a correspondence that became an enormously popular book, play, and television production, and that finally led to the trip to England – and a visit to Q’s study – that she recounts here. In this exuberant memoir, Hanff pays her dept to her mentor and shares her joyous adventures with her many fans.
This book is the very simple story of the love affair between Miss Helene Hanff of New York and Messrs Marks and Co, sellers of rare and secondhand books, at 84 Charing Cross Road, London'. DAILY TELEGRAPH Told in a series of letters in 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD and then in diary form in the second part THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET, this true story has touched the hearts of thousands.
In her outstandingly successful 84 Charing Cross Road Helene Hanff told the story of her love affair with an antiquarian bookshop in London. In Apple Of My Eye she celebrates something even bigger – her lifelong love for New York. Asked to write some copy for about 'The Big Apple', she found to her dismay that she knew hardly anything about her own city, and so she asked a friend to go exploring with her. This is the story of that madcap voyage of discovery.
This book is the very simple story of the love affair between Miss Helene Hanff of New York and Messrs Marks and Co, sellers of rare and secondhand books, at 84 Charing Cross Road, London'. DAILY TELEGRAPH Told in a series of letters in 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD and then in diary form in the second part THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET, this true story has touched the hearts of thousands.