By Helene Hanff
(Reviewed by Nancy Jelinek)

When I began to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, I was reminded of another book I’d read (and loved) some time ago. While also told through a series of letters, 84, Charing Cross Road is not fiction. It is a compilation of correspondence begun in 1949 by Helene Hanff, an American author, and Frank Doel, of Marks & Co., in London. It ended 20 years later.

Hanff, at that time a poorly paid scriptwriter and a prolific reader of old English texts, was unable to find books she could afford in New York City. She found an ad featuring Marks & Co., an antiquarian bookstore, in a magazine, and wrote a letter asking for help. Frank Doel—he later told her it “rhymes with Noel”—answered her letter and filled what he could of her list. She sometimes teased Frank for his slowness in finding a requested book or shared some of her life in New York. Postwar London’s food shortages spurred Hanff to send food parcels at Christmas and Easter. As the food was divided among everyone at the shop, she came to know the other staff and their families.

Helene had hoped to come to London to meet Frank, his family, and the staff at the bookstore, but she often had financial difficulties. When she was finally able to get there, Frank Doel was dead of peritonitis and the store had closed. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street is Hanff’s recollection of that trip: meeting Frank’s family and visiting the legendary sites she’d always dreamed of seeing.

In 1987, 84, Charing Cross Road was adapted for a movie starring Anne Bancroft as Helene, Anthony Hopkins as Frank Doel, and Judi Dench as Frank’s wife.