The Romance Of Letters

When I reached home from teaching about Sayyidina 'Umar tonight, a book on my shelf was screaming to be read - 84 Charing Cross Road. Took it and devoured it within an hour. This is indeed one of my favourite books and I was so grateful to have been acquainted with it many years ago - with all its charm, and with all its romance. It is, after all, a story about a relationship begun because of a mutual love of old great books.

This book was also marvellously made into a movie led by my favourite actors: Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft. But, the book really speaks to you. It is about a loving relationship built over 20 years between 2 friends living across the seas through old-fashion mails: Helene Hanff from New York and Frank Doel from London. The whole book constitutes only the letters exchanged between these 2 friends - and as fate decreed, they never met. It is a real story based on the author's personal experience.

"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 Helene and Frank - and for 20 years the outspoken New Yorker and the restrained Londoner carried on an increasing touching and emotional correspondence. Contently and confidently married, Frank responds as an older brother might, and the two grow to cherish each other despite the distance. As they care for each other, and slowly, their local friends and family become aware, we see how love transcends the great physical distance.

Like so many of today's e-mail and chatroom-only friendships, this romantic pen-pals learn to appreciate each other, though knowing only the other as they choose to describe themselves. This isn't a story about books or bookstores, despite the honest representation of their demeanor and personality. Any book-lover knows the search for a book, and the texture of a bookseller's knowledge and connection with his books. This is a book about the depth, trust, and love of one unexpected relationship. Book-lovers will enjoy the context, and good friends will smile knowingly.

Told with such poignant charm through those beautiful letters, Helene's long-distance friendship with Frank is a bittersweet one, and one that will remain with you long afterwards. Helene's love of books is infectious - and this book is therefore a must for anyone who feels strongly about the books in their home.

Yet it is one that bears much re-reading, as it seems that somewhere between the lines there lie more than a few life-lessons for us all.

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.''

Having always adored England - and in particular, London, Helene had always seen her letters to Marks & Co (Frank's bookstore) as her lifeline to a country she always longed to go to but would never be able to afford to visit. With the publication of 84 Charing Cross Road in the UK, Helene was finally able to visit London, a year after the bookshop that had inspired her so much had closed down. There, she was treated like a celebrity and was able to finally meet old friends such as Nora, Frank's widow, and their daughters. She also met Leo Marks, the son of the co-owner of Marks & Co. Leo and Helene became fast friends and on subsequent visits to the country, Helene would always stay as Leo's guest.

There were some books in Helene's life that she will never part with: the books that she'd bought from 84 Charing Cross Road, which she kept on a shelf alongside the old bookshop's sign which a devoted fan had 'acquired' for her some time after the bookshop closed for the last time.

Despite the fame and adoration that all of her books brought her, Helene was by no means a wealthy woman. Towards the end of her life, she was living off meagre royalties and accepting financial help for her medical bills. Helene Hanff died in 1997, aged 80 years old. She is, fittingly, commemorated at the spot where Marks & Co once stood by a plaque which reads:

84 Charing Cross Road

The booksellers Marks & Co

Were on this site which became world renowned

Through the book by Helene Hanff.