84, CHARING CROSS ROAD
By Helene Hanff
Grossman, 1970
Penguin Books, 1990
I will be in London for two weeks this summer, and my good friend Jane gave me a copy of this book to get me in the mood. Jane is the best book-giver on the planet.
84, CHARING CROSS ROAD is a book of letters written over a twenty year period between Helene Hanff, an American writer and bibliophile, and Frank Doel, an English bookseller. The book contains no commentary or notes of any kind, just the letters. The story of Helene and Frank’s relationship, which was built mostly upon a shared passion for old English books, unfolds at its own pace, defies logic and geography and even time. I read this in a single sitting (too hot to move in the Northeast today, much less do laundry) and wept at the end.
The book brought to mind another book of letters I have read and loved … a book I recommend to all the children’s book writers I know. Ursula Nordstrom, the legendary editor at Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls, was a dedicated letter writer and Marcus J. Pfister has edited and published a large volume of her correspondence. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Margaret Wise Brown, and Maurice Sendak are just a few of the authors Ms. Nordstrom mentored; reading her encouragement and criticism and devotion to some of the great names in children’s literature is a must. (The book is called DEAR GENIUS, a salutation Nordstrom liked to use when writing to her authors. Can you stand it?!)
Not surprisingly, I have been itching to write a letter all day. Not an email, not a note, not even a blog entry … a true letter, written longhand in my out-of-practice scrawl, stamped, and mailed via the good old US Postal Service. (When was the last time you wrote one of these letters? When was the last time one appeared in your mailbox?) Imagine a mailbox with no bills and no rejections, just letters …
Best,
Loree