To Helene Hanff, 84 Charing Cross Street

Ludie 2022-04-10 09:01:09

from tumblr.
"I tell you, life is extraordinary. A few years ago I couldn't write anything or sell anything, I'd passed the age where you know all the returns are in, I'd had my chance and done my best and failed. And how was I to know the miracle waiting to happen round the corner in late middle age? 84, Charing Cross Road was no best seller, you understand; it didn't make me rich or famous. It just got me hundreds of letters and phone calls from people I never knew existed; it got me wonderful reviews; it restored a self-confidence and self-esteem I'd lost somewhere along the way, God knows how many years ago. It brought me to England . It changed my life.”
— Helene Hanff, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street (1974).


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Extended Reading

84 Charing Cross Road quotes

  • Frank P. Doel: [reading "He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" by William Butler Yeats] "Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths, Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

  • Helene Hanff: Somebody gave me this book for Christmas. It's "A Great Modern Library" book. Ever seen one of those? It's less attractively bound than the "Proceedings of the New York State Assembly" and it weighs more. It was a given to me by a gent who knows I'm fond of John Donne. The title of this book is: "The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne *and* the Complete Poetry of William Blake"? The question mark is mine. Will you please tell me what those two boys have in common except - they were both English and they both wrote.