84, Charing Cross road: A book is nothing but Helen Hanff’s epistolary memoir

84, Charing Cross road: A book is nothing but Helen Hanff’s epistolary memoir

On 28^th February 2018, Strand Book Stall situated at Fort Mumbai closed down its shutters permanently. After seeing the advertisement in Newspaper, I rushed to the shop to get some outstanding books. At time of searching, I came across an endearing little book which is easy to read named as 84, Charing Cross road. At the time of browsing, I found this book is not a novel or love story or romance book. It is  a correspondence between two book lovers Helen Hanff, a freelancer story writer from New York and Frank Doel, an employee of a used-book dealer at Marks and Company in London from 1949 to 1969 . When I read the first letter, I was curious and amused by the second and third letter. Therefore, I decided to purchase this book for my collection. This book is really interesting even though the letters which have been written in this book are not in an artistic way.  This book was first published in 1970.

From Yogesh Gogwekar

Today’s world is a digital world. All readers can get their required books by just clicking on their computer mouses or a tab on their touching devices or sending the mails to book publishers or shopkeepers of Book stalls. Written communication through letters became history. Through this electronic media, we have lost the stock of correspondence form of data. Nearly seventy years back, writing letters was the only way of communication. After reading such a treasury of collected letters mentioned in 84, Charing cross Road, I realized the importance of such outdated communication.

Helen Hanff was an avid and voracious reader and also an outspoken person. She was not able to find good editions of English Literature in America. The only location was New York City Public Library where she could get these books. But this place is far away from her house and she had to read the book in the library only. Another important fact that these books were not properly printed and do have history behind them. Luckily, her upstairs neighbors were British and they gave her the address of Marks and Company of London. This was the new world to her. She started writing to the employees of Marks and Company requesting them to send new or slightly used copies of English Literature and also the copies of rare books. For that she used to pay air mail and shipping charges. She did this correspondence for twenty years without any hesitation.

Frank Doel who was working in Marks and company started responding to her letters and sent the books required by Hanff. In the beginning they were referring to each other mam or sir. Helen Hanff was an outspoken lady and Frank Doel was a reserved person but their friendship started developing because of their passion of books and they started using the familiar names Helen and Frank. Their friendship was warmth and humanity which also warms all our hearts. She became a very good friend of Nora who was the wife of Frank Doel and also his neighbor. Hanff also started sending them food stuffs which were still under ration in England and also nylons to the neighbor of Frank Doel and also to the staff members of the Marks and Company. In this book, Frank Doel requested her to come to London and stay with his family but travel money cost did not permit her to go to London. Even after developing a close friendship based on books, Helen Hanff and Frank Doel never met and Frank Doel died in the late 1960s. This news was also given to her by one of the staff of marks and Company. She was shocked after reading this news and lost not only a great fiend but a long and important friend in her book-loving life. It is very difficult to know whether Helen Hanff travelled London in her lifetime or not.

It is a wonderful book to read. I enjoyed this little book which described two different characters and their correspondence. I request every book lover to read this book which was later adapted for TV serial, theater and Film. In the film these characters were played by Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. In 1981, it was adapted for theater by James Roose-Evans in which Rosemary Leach played the role of Hanff and David Swift as Doel. 

Let us have this book in your own collections

Mumbai

24/07/2020