Summary
Correspondence, October 5, 1949 to November 1, 1950
Helene Hanff finds herself intrigued by an advertisement from a London bookseller specializing in elusive, out-of-print volumes. With little knowledge of Marks & Co., she dispatches a list of her "most pressing problems": secondhand books she yearns for, stipulating they must be pristine copies priced no more than $5.00. The books arrive safely, and with the aid of a neighbor in her New York apartment building, Helene cleverly calculates the cost in dollars per British pound.
"Kindly inform the Church of England they have loused up the most beautiful prose ever written," Helene declares in a letter to Marks & Co. upon receiving a Bible, criticizing the Church of England for meddling with the Vulgate Latin. To support her indignation, she catalogs her diverse family tree, revealing a Catholic sister-in-law, Presbyterian cousins, and others with varied religious beliefs. Despite the bookseller's plea for security, she encloses four dollar bills along with her next request.
In another correspondence, Helene effuses about her discovery of a Roman battle scene in a book from the store, expressing her love for secondhand books, which often fall open to cherished passages. Finding solace in a well-loved copy of Hazlitt’s works, she muses, "[Hazlitt’s book] opened to ‘I hate to read new books!’"
In the same letter, Helene learns from a Marks & Co. employee that the shop's occupants, like all Londoners, endure rations of meat and eggs for the war effort. Out of compassion, she decides to send the Charing Cross booksellers a six-pound ham. Frank Doel later expresses his heartfelt thanks, describing the food parcel as something "we either never see or can only be had through the black market."
In March, Helene voices her frustration to Frank about the tardiness in fulfilling her book requests. She laments the absence of several books for Lent and bemoans her need to scrawl in the margins of books, thus risking her library card. With exasperation, she adds, "I have made arrangements with the Easter bunny to bring you an Egg, he will get over there and find you have died of Inertia."
Cecily, another store employee, cannot contain her curiosity, admitting to Helene her desire to "slip in a little note" with the book bills. Though Frank is far from stuffy, Cecily confides that he regards Helene as "his private correspondent." She requests a photograph of Helene and speculates about her appearance. Cecily imagines her as "young and very sophisticated," while others predict a "studious-looking" figure. Helene's self-portrait is far from flattering; she describes herself as "so unstudious," without a college background, comparing her look to a "Broadway panhandler."
With future travels on her mind, Helene asks Cecily about London. Adding her own insights, she relays a newspaperman's warning that tourists often arrive with preconceived images. "I told him I’d go looking for the England of English literature, and he said: ‘Then it’s there.’"
Correspondence, February 2, 1951 to December 17, 1952
Helene is moved by the gift of Elizabethan poetry, its pages gilded in gold, sent by everyone at Marks & Co., along with letters from Megan Wells, Bill Humphries, and Frank Doel expressing deep appreciation for her generosity. She modestly downplays the Easter food parcel, criticizing the American government for "pouring millions into rebuilding Japan and Germany while letting England starve" during the challenging postwar 1950s.
Another moment finds Helene exasperated, incredulous that her cherished bookseller would send her a book of excerpts from Pepys Diary rather than the complete work. "I could just spit," she tells Frank, whose apologetic response is more enthusiastic than ever....
(This entire section contains 1474 words.)
Unlock this Study Guide Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
He assures Helene of brighter times ahead for London, with Winston Churchill's re-election on the horizon. "You dizzy me," remarks Helene, feeling guilty for her outburst overPepys Diary.
In a letter to her friend Maxie, Helene requests the purchase of four pairs of nylons for the girls at the bookseller and Frank's wife, after receiving a letter from Nora Doel. Nora had shared the barter value of dried eggs for the stockings. Helene confesses to Maxie that, despite her longing to visit England and the cherished bookseller, she feels more at ease writing "the most outrageous letters from a safe 3,000 miles away."
Helene also writes to congratulate Nora and Frank on acquiring their first car, a rare commodity, whether new or used. She shares her own trials with Frank, from clearing out overflowing bookshelves to the expense of capping her teeth. In her final letter of 1952, she acknowledges the uneven holiday gift exchange. "You’ll eat yours up in a week. . . . I’ll have mine till the day I die." Delighting in the thought that her faint pencil scribblings may one day captivate "some book lover yet unborn."
Correspondence, May 3, 1953 to May 8, 1960
In 1953, Cecily encourages Helene to abandon the idea of sending care packages and instead start saving for a trip to London in 1955. Fast forward to 1955, Helene writes a letter to Frank, questioning if Cecily remains in Iraq. "Do you mean to sit there and tell me you’ve been publishing these mammoth catalogues all these years and this is the first time you ever bothered to send me one?" Helene exclaims in disbelief. Along with her letter, she sends a heartfelt plea for the Brooklyn Dodgers to clinch the World Series.
Helene quips about a Marks & Co. employee's decision to relocate to South Africa, "Will you tell Megan Wells she is out of her cotton picking mind." Meanwhile, Helene's own life is in flux. Facing eviction from her New York brownstone, she moves to secure "a real apartment with real furniture" and "wall-to-wall carpeting," though it means delaying her dream trip to London. "All this and the Dodgers disintegrating before my very eyes," she laments over her misfortunes.
Upon hearing that her television shows are relocating to Hollywood, Frank offers words of solace to Helene. Five months later, Helene shares the exciting news of a $5,000 grant she’s won from CBS to write dramatizations of American history. She playfully teases Frank that her first script will explore New York under seven years of British occupation, "and I marvel at how I rise above it to address you in friendly and forgiving fashion, your behavior over here from 1776 to 1783 was simply filthy."
Correspondence: "Sunday Night and a hell of a way to start 1960" to October 1969
Helene finds herself deeply engrossed in a massive Modern Library volume gifted to her for Christmas, prompting a flurry of correspondence with Frank as the New Year dawns. She finds the coupling of John Donne and William Blake's works into one edition utterly nonsensical. "I’m being driven clear up the wall, Frankie, you have got to help me," she confides in desperation.
With only a $1,500 book advance to last half the year, Helene must carefully manage her finances. "So I can’t buy any books," she admits, choosing instead to frequent the Society Library for a copy of Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon, though she struggles to find time to finish it. She suggests Frank buy it and keep it on reserve for her, to which Frank generously responds by sending six volumes to her at no cost. "Your credit will always be good at Marks & Co.," he assures Helene.
"Enclosed-please-God-please-find a $10 bill," Helene writes to Frank, insisting on contributing something toward Memoirs. She recounts a dinner with her editor from Harper’s, discussing her dramatization of Walter Savage Landor’s Aesop and Rhodope for Hallmark. Just hours before the broadcast, she is shocked to discover a sculpture photo in the New York Times captioned "Rhodope, the most famous prostitute in Greece"—a detail unbeknownst to her while creating the family program. Her editor reacts impatiently rather than sympathetically. "You see how it is, Frankie," Helene writes, "you’re the only soul alive who understands me."
On January 8, 1969, the tragic news of Frank's passing reaches Helene. He was unexpectedly hospitalized for a ruptured appendix and succumbed a week later. A letter from Nora arrives twenty-one days later, offering a heartfelt tribute to Frank. She shares her newfound appreciation for his talents as tributes continue to pour in. Nora also confesses her envy of Helene’s writing prowess and the unique bond she shared with Frank.
When Maxine proposes a trip to London and asks if Helene would like to join, Helene admits she nearly cried at the offer, provided she had the fare. She resolves it might be best not to go, having dreamt of it for so long. Reflecting on the enchanting mysteries of English literature’s England, she muses, "maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Looking around the rug one thing’s for sure: it’s here." The narrative concludes with an epilogue: a letter from one of Frank’s daughters granting Helene permission to publish her letters with Marks & Co. in book form.
