Helene Hanff (April 15, 1916–April 9, 1997) was an American writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is best known as the author of the book 84 Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a play, teleplay, and film of the same name.
Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Yorker, goes far beyond the charm of that one book. She called her 1961 memoir Underfoot in Show Business, and it chronicled the struggle of an ambitious young playwright to make it in the world of New York theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. She worked in publicists' offices and spent summers on the "straw hat" circuit along the East Coast of the United States, writing plays that were admired by some of Broadway's leading producers but which somehow never saw the light of day.
She wrote and edited scripts for a variety of early television dramas produced out of New York, all the while continuing to try and move from being what she called "one of the 999 out of 1,000 who don't become Noel Coward." When the bulk of television production moved to California, her work slowly dried up, and she turned to writing for magazines and, eventually, to the books that made her reputation.
First published in 1970, the epistolary work 84 Charing Cross Road chronicles her 20 years of correspondence with Frank Doel, the chief buyer for Marks & Co., a London bookshop, on which she depended for the obscure classics and British literature titles around which her passion for self-education revolved. She became intimately involved in the lives of the shop's staff, sending them food parcels during England's post-war shortages and sharing with them details of her life in Manhattan.
Due to financial difficulties and an aversion to travel, she put off visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968 from peritonitis from a burst appendix, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.
In the 1987 film of 84 Charing Cross Road (film), Hanff was played by Anne Bancroft, while Anthony Hopkins took the part of Frank Doel. Anne Jackson had earlier played Hanff in a 1975 adaptation of the book for British television. Ellen Burstyn recreated the role on Broadway in 1982 at the Nederlander Theater in New York City.
She later put her obsession with British scholar Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch to use in a book called Q's Legacy. Other books include Apple of My Eye, an idiosyncratic guide to New York City, and A Letter from New York (1992), which reprinted talks she gave on the BBC's Woman's Hour between 1978 and 1985.
Hanff was never shy about her fondness for cigarettes and martinis, but nevertheless lived to be 80, dying of diabetes in 1997 in New York City. The apartment building where she lived at 305 E. 72nd Street has been named "Charing Cross House" in her honor. A bronze plaque next to the front door commemorates her residence and authorship of the book.
84, Charing Cross Road is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural difference, and imaginative sympathy. For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence.
In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, "The phrase 'antiquarian booksellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive." Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover.
When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic -- but unsure she'll ever conquer "bilingual arithmetic." By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin.
Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. "i enclose two limp singles, i will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN i will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT." Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they're sharing news of Frank's family and Hanff's career. No doubt their letters would have continued, but in 1969, the firm's secretary informed her that Frank Doel had died. In the collection's penultimate entry, Helene Hanff urges a tourist friend, "If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me. I owe it so much."
书渣们,你们从哪儿读出《查令十字街84号》有爱情味道呢?仅从一句德尔太太的信中写了句“我过去对您心存嫉妒”吗,那是标准的英国式礼貌而已。全书145页,作者书信原文93页,如果没那些添油加醋的序呀跋呀读后感呀,这书凭着几封干巴巴的信件恐怕早被扔到书架下端了,没有人再...
评分聂鲁达在信里如此写到:“用写信的方式告别,免得我们相互对着流泪。”却不知,有多少见字如面的信笺,在斑斑泪痕里面目全非。 写信在这个即时通讯工具花样百出的年代,或许已经成为了某种过于文艺的象征。在我们,信件是藤井树与藤井树被填补的青春,是海角七号的波涛,是玛丽...
评分我这个人总是过时的厉害,看过时的书,做过时的事情,尊重过时的信仰。 常常满心欢喜的拿些过时的书宝贝起来。就好像我在万圣拿起那本书眉页脚都泛着时间的陈色的书的时候。05年的书,放在现在,当真是有些年头了。 后来翻开的时候我还一直再想,究竟是因为放的太久而令纸页变...
评分经常在看过一部故事特棒的书或电影之后,感叹这故事太好,只能在书或电影里发生。其实自己也知道,这感叹不大靠谱儿,毕竟大千世界里发生的故事,有时候比小说或电影不知道精彩多少倍,甚至故事好得不像真事儿。 《查令十字街84号》就是这样一个好得不像真事儿的故事。这本书...
评分今天看到一则新闻《中国最大邮筒 北岸九号码头邮筒将拆》。拆那拆那,作为中国人,拆哪里都不会奇怪,只是新闻看下去,对这个大邮筒的设立很感兴趣。原来,这个邮筒是广州亚运时建的,号称能容纳500万封信,邮筒将在30年之后开启,这些信件也会在30年后寄出。 这个巨大绿色容...
看下去感觉不好,不喜欢里面一厢情愿的暧昧,不喜欢她那种搔首弄姿的浓烈寂寞味道 但是很羡慕她那么有创造力地使用英语~
评分这个版本好美,班克劳夫特的序言也写得朴实动人,书末有很多补充材料,书中有主角照片,终于看到Helene和Frank真人了,不得不说电影的选角还是很到位的。另外不知道是我记性太差,还是中文版有删减,我不记得 Helene和Frank的妻子有那么多书信往来,之前一直记得是她只在 Frank 死后写过一封。Helene的语言很生动,比看中文版更有画面感,52年蜜月期与店员们的书信往来,感觉到一种唐顿庄园式的友善和命运的牵连。到了60年代,书信减少,大家都失散了,那种失落感是读中文版时忽略了的。也是第一次真正读懂 Frank 死后她写给朋友那封信,写出来的是情结,写不出来的是心酸。
评分之后,去查令十字街成了我的一个梦想
评分Kindness, more kindness, and kindness again
评分到了最后Frank过世 Helene还是没有去过英国QAQ
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