Lynda's Reviews > 84 Charing Cross Road

I lived in London from 2004 to 2008 and still have a house there. I continue to travel to London regularly from Dubai. I call these trips my "sanity check"; they transport me from my 'dream' world back to the 'real' world.

One of my favourite haunts in London is Charing Cross Road. It's been the home to booksellers selling second-hand and rare books for decades. Long before the American writer Helene Hanff immortalised the street in 84 Charing Cross Road, the area enjoyed a storied association with the city’s literary scene and its accompanying book trade. In its 1950s heyday, denizens of the nearby drinking dens of Soho, from Dylan Thomas to Auberon Waugh, would stagger from shop to shop, scanning the heaving shelves.

One of those shops was Marks & Co., the subject of this review, a well-known antiquarian bookseller located at Cambridge Circus - 84 Charing Cross Road, London. The shop was founded in the 1920s by Benjamin Marks and Mark Cohen. Cohen was persuaded to allow his name to be abbreviated in the company's name. The company built a good reputation for itself and had famous customers, including Charlie Chaplin, George Bernard Shaw, Michael Foot, royalty and public institutions such as universities and the British Museum.


- Marks & Co., 84 Charing Cross Road

Marks & Co. used to advertise its goods in various newspapers, magazines, journals etc. On Oct 5, 1949, a Miss Helene Hanff, from New York City, USA saw their ad in the Saturday Review of Literature. She wrote them a letter:

"Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print books. The phrase 'antiquarian book-sellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive. I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions, or in Barnes & Noble's grimy, marked-up school-boy copies.

I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have clean secondhand copies of any of the books on the list, for no more than $5.00 each, will you consider this a purchase order and send them to me?"

Her letter was responded to by an employee of Marks & Co. with the initials FPD, who we later learn is Frank Doel, the chief buyer for Marks & Co.. And so the epistolary novel of 84 Charing Cross Road begins. For 20 years Helene maintains correspondence with Marks & Co., and particulalry with Frank.

During the time of their exchange, Britain was experiencing food rationing. Every man, woman and child was given a ration book with coupons. These were required before rationed goods could be purchased. Basic foodstuffs such as sugar, meat, fats, bacon and cheese were directly rationed by an allowance of coupons. Priority allowances of milk and eggs were given to those most in need - children, expectant mothers or invalids. Housewives had to register with particular retailers. As shortages increased, long queues became commonplace.

For many years, until the end of food rationing, Helene sent the employees of Marks & Co. food parcels. Hams, tinned food of varying kinds (including tongue), boxed eggs, chocolate, raisins and so on. These parcels used to be divied up among the employees and brought such great joy and happiness to them and their families. Nylons were a favourite of the Doel household; with Frank's wife and two daughters.

I delighted in reading this novel. I simply adored Helene. I could see a lot of myself in her. With her often acerbic comments, wit, generosity, kindness, and stubborness, she could be my identical twin! :) Even her reactions to receiving her beloved books were 'me to a tee'. I do wonder if I am a reincarnate of sorts.


- Me (taken Oct 2014) and Helene - a similarity, don't you think?

[As an aside, there is an enchanting exchange of letters between Helene Hanff and a fan that is refreshing to read, and demonstrates the type of woman that Helene was. http://freespace.virgin.net/angela.ga...]

I treasured the following quotes from Helene:

"I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest."

"I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to."

"The Book-Lovers' Anthology stepped out of its wrappings, all gold-embossed leather and gold-tipped pages, easily the most beautiful book I own including the Newman first edition. It looks too new and pristine ever to have been read by anyone else, but it has been: it keeps falling open at the most delightful places as the ghost of its former owner points me to things I've never read before."

"I houseclean my books every spring and throw out those I'm never going to read again like I throw out clothes I'm never going to wear again. It shocks everybody. My friends are peculiar about books. They read all the best sellers, they get through them as fast as possible, I think they skip a lot. And they NEVER read anything a second time so they don't remember a word of it a year later. But they are profoundly shocked to see me drop a book in the wastebasket or give it away. The way they look at it, you buy a book, you read it, you put it on the shelf, you never open it again for the rest of your life but YOU DON'T THROW IT OUT! NOT IF IT HAS A HARD COVER ON IT! Why not? I personally can't think of anything less sancrosanct than a bad book or even a mediocre book."

Helene had never been out of the USA and lived for the day when she could visit London. Frank, his wife and others, tried many times to get her to visit them, but some crisis or another, generally financial, did not afford her that luxury.

In a letter dated April 11, 1969, Helene wrote a letter to her friend, Katherine. In it she said:

"If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me! I owe it that much."

I will do that for Helene, the next time I am in London, as I'm sure thousands before me have done so, and thousands of others will do in the future.

Marks & Co. have long gone, and 84 Charing Cross Road has been many things since; a wine shop, a restaurant, to name but a few. But there is a plaque at the very spot in memory of the store. There is also a plaque in the US, at Charing Cross House, 305 East 72nd Street, New York, where Helene Hanff once lived.


- Plaques in the UK and US

This afternoon I read the reviews of this book by GR friends. They were all wonderful and expressed how I felt about the letters between Helene and Frank. One friend's review though, Trevor's, was especially poignant and moved me to conclude this review with his thoughts:

If you needed to be reminded that love of literature is as good a foundation of love of the world as any other 'religion', that the people we write to can be closer and dearer to us than those we see day after day - then this really is a book written to remind you of just that.
- GR friend: Trevor

Amen to that.