84 Charing Cross Road
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84 Charing Cross Road is a 1970 book by Helene Hanff about the twenty-year correspondence between herself and Frank Doel of Marks & Company, antiquarian booksellers located at the title address in London, England.
Hanff, in search of obscure classics and British literature titles she had been unable to find in New York City, noticed an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature and first contacted the shop in 1949, and it fell to Doell to fulfill her request. In time, a long-distance friendship evolved, not only between the two, but between Hanff and other staff members as well, with an exchange of Christmas packages, birthday gifts, and food parcels to compensate for post-World War II shortages added to the ongoing business transactions. Their letters included discussions about topics as diverse as the sermons of John Donne, how to make Yorkshire Pudding, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Hanff postponed visiting her English friends until too late; the bookshop closed, and Doel died. She eventually visited Charing Cross Road in a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.
Marks & Company is now closed. A plaque on the building that now stands on the shop's former site acknowledges the story.
[edit] Adaptations
Hugh Whitemore adapted 84 Charing Cross Road for a BBC teleplay broadcast as part of the series Play for Today. Starring Frank Finlay and Anne Jackson, it was first broadcast on 4 November 1975.
In 1981, James Roose-Evans adapted it for the stage in a two-character version first produced at the Salisbury Playhouse. With Rosemary Leach and David Swift, it transferred to the West End, where it opened to universally ecstatic reviews.
After fifteen previews, the Broadway production opened on 7 December 1982 at the Nederlander Theatre with Ellen Burstyn and Joseph Maher. Due primarily to a mediocre review [1] by Frank Rich in the New York Times, it ran for only 96 performances.
Whitemore returned to the project to write the screenplay for the 1987 film adaptation starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. The dramatis personae was expanded to include Hanff's Manhattan friends, the bookshop staff, and Doel's wife, played by Judi Dench. Bancroft won a BAFTA Award as Best Actress; Whitemore and Dench were nominated for direction and supporting performance.
