84, Charing Cross Road Read Free Page A

economize the rest of the month in Middlesex?
    Ben Marks is trying to see what I’m writing so shall have to close.
    Sincerely,

Cecily

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14 East 95th St.

October 15, 1950

    WELL!!!
    All I have to say to YOU, Frank Doel, is we live in depraved, destructive and degenerate times when a bookshop—a BOOKSHOP—starts tearing up beautiful old books to use as wrapping paper. I said to John Henry when he stepped out of it:
    “Would you believe a thing like that, Your Eminence?” and he said he wouldn’t. You tore that book up in the middle of a major battle and I don’t even know which war it was.
    The Newman arrived almost a week ago and I’m just beginning to recover. I keep it on the table with me all day, every now and then I stop typing and reach over and touch it. Not because it’s a first edition; I just never saw a book so beautiful. I feel vaguely guilty about owning it. All that gleaming leather and gold stamping and beautiful type belongs in the pine-panelled library of an English country home; it wants to be read by the fire in a gentleman’s leather easy chair—not on a secondhand studio couch in a one-room hovel in a broken-down brownstone front.
    I want the Q anthology. I’m not sure how much it was, I lost your last letter. I think it was about two bucks, I’ll enclose two singles, if I owe you more let me know.
    Why don’t you wrap it in pages LCXII and LCXIII so I can at least find out who won the battle and what war it was?
    HH

     
    P.S. Have you got Sam Pepys’ diary over there? I need him for long winter evenings.
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Marks & Co., Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C.2
    1st November, 1950
    Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, New York
U.S.A.
    Dear Miss Hanff,
    I am sorry for the delay in answering your letter but I have been away out of town for a week or so and am now busy trying to catch up on my correspondence.
    First of all, please don’t worry about us using old books such as Clarendon’s Rebellion for wrapping. In this particular case they were just two odd volumes with the covers detached and nobody in their right senses would have given us a shilling for them.
    The Quiller-Couch anthology, The Pilgrim’s Way , has been sent to you by Book Post. The balance due was $1.85 so your $2 more than covered it. We haven’t a copy of Pepys’ Diary in stock at the moment but shall look out for one for you.
    With best wishes,
Yours faithfully,

F. Doel
For MARKS & CO.

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Marks & Co., Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C.2
    2nd February, 1951
    Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, New York
U.S.A.
    Dear Miss Hanff,
    We are glad you liked the “Q” anthology. We have no copy of the Oxford Book of English Prose in stock at the moment but will try to find one for you.
    About the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers , we happen to have in stock a volume of eighteenth century essays which includes a good selection of them as well as essays by Chesterfield and Goldsmith. It is edited by Austin Dobson and is quite a nice edition and as it is only $1.15 we have sent it off to you by Book Post. If you want a more complete collection of Addison & Steele let me know and I will try to find one.
    There are six of us in the shop, not including Mr. Marks and Mr. Cohen.
    Faithfully yours,

Frank Doel
For MARKS & CO.

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Eastcote
Pinner
Middlesex

20–2–51

    Helene my dear—
    There are many ways of doing it but Mummy and I think this is the simplest for you to try. Put a cup of flour, an egg, a half cup of milk and a good shake of salt into a large bowl and beat altogether until it is the consistency of thick cream. Put in the frig for several hours. (It’s best if you make it in the morning.) When you put your roast in the oven, put in an extra pan to heat. Half an hour before your roast is done, pour a bit of the roast grease into the baking pan, just enough to cover the bottom will do. The pan must be very hot. Now pour the pudding in and the roast