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84 Charing Cross Road

Virago Modern Classics (Book 776)

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What to expect

INCLUDES AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE READERS
'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 schoolboy copies.'

So begins the delightfully reticent 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. For 20 years, this outspoken New York writer and Frank Doel, a rather more restrained London bookseller carry on an increasingly touching correspondence. No doubt their letters would have continued, but in 1969, a letter informed Helene 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.'

Critics Review

A lovely new edition of this classic title
Good Book Guide
A must for anyone who reads - the correspondence between book lover Helen Hanff and Messers Marks & Cross of Charing Cross Road has been reissued
Daily Express
A real-life love story . . . A timeless period piece. Do read it
Wall Street Journal
Unmitigated delight from cover to cover
Daily Telegraph
Those who have read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a novel comprised of only letters between the characters, will see how much that bestseller owes 84, Charing Cross Road
Medium.com
[84, Charing Cross Road] will beguile an hour of your time and put you in tune with mankind . . . will provide an emollient for the spirit and a sheath for the exposed nerve
New York Times
A unique, throat-lumping, side-splitting treasure
San Francisco Examiner
One of the subtlest, sharpest, most moving relationships ever formed between pen pals. I can't imagine [84 Charing Cross Road] without Stevenson and Nettles. Her warmth, his reticence, their shared love of old books made me weep. I miss books horribly, but audios as perfect as this make up for the loss.
GUARDIAN
A must for anyone who reads - the correspondence between book lover Helen Hanff and Messers Marks & Cross of Charing Cross Road has been reissued.
Daily Express
Unmitigated delight from cover to cover
DAILY TELEGRAPH

User Reviews

Book 5.0
Narration 5.0
Author Helene Hanff, Introduction by Juliet Stevenson
Narrator John Nettles, Juliet Stevenson
Series Virago Modern Classics
Duration 2 hours and 8 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781405503129
Format Audiobook
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Genre Biography and non-fiction prose, Biography: general, Classic fiction
Collections A Book A Day, Leena Norms Recommends
Availability AU, GB, IE
Rating
5.0 (1 review)
Narration
5.0 (1 review)

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