Hanff was a voracious reader and kept Doel or ‘FPD’, as he signed in the first few letters, on his toes with her demands ranging from essays by Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, Samuel Pepys’ diaries “for long winter evenings”, Chaucer, Jane Austen, to “a book of love poems with spring coming on.” Soon they were sharing personal news about each other and other staff members of the bookshop too began corresponding with Hanff. Published in 1970, it was an instant success, and Hanff, a self-admitted failed playwright, sawĨ4 Charing Cross Road being adapted for stage both at London’s West End and New York’s Broadway, and a film version as well. “I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books…,” she explained, but “if you have clean secondhand copies of any of the books on the list, for no more than $5 each, will you consider this a purchase order and send them to me?” The shop’s manager, Frank Doel, replied to Hanff, starting a correspondence that lasted over two decades. It all began in October 1949 when New York-based writer Helene Hanff reacted to an advertisement for out-of-print books by London’s Marks & Co and wrote to them.
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