Helene Hanff (April 15, 1916–April 9, 1997) was an American writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is best known as the author of the book 84 Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a play, teleplay, and film of the same name.
Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Yorker, goes far beyond the charm of that one book. She called her 1961 memoir Underfoot in Show Business, and it chronicled the struggle of an ambitious young playwright to make it in the world of New York theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. She worked in publicists' offices and spent summers on the "straw hat" circuit along the East Coast of the United States, writing plays that were admired by some of Broadway's leading producers but which somehow never saw the light of day.
She wrote and edited scripts for a variety of early television dramas produced out of New York, all the while continuing to try and move from being what she called "one of the 999 out of 1,000 who don't become Noel Coward." When the bulk of television production moved to California, her work slowly dried up, and she turned to writing for magazines and, eventually, to the books that made her reputation.
First published in 1970, the epistolary work 84 Charing Cross Road chronicles her 20 years of correspondence with Frank Doel, the chief buyer for Marks & Co., a London bookshop, on which she depended for the obscure classics and British literature titles around which her passion for self-education revolved. She became intimately involved in the lives of the shop's staff, sending them food parcels during England's post-war shortages and sharing with them details of her life in Manhattan.
Due to financial difficulties and an aversion to travel, she put off visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968 from peritonitis from a burst appendix, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.
In the 1987 film of 84 Charing Cross Road (film), Hanff was played by Anne Bancroft, while Anthony Hopkins took the part of Frank Doel. Anne Jackson had earlier played Hanff in a 1975 adaptation of the book for British television. Ellen Burstyn recreated the role on Broadway in 1982 at the Nederlander Theater in New York City.
She later put her obsession with British scholar Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch to use in a book called Q's Legacy. Other books include Apple of My Eye, an idiosyncratic guide to New York City, and A Letter from New York (1992), which reprinted talks she gave on the BBC's Woman's Hour between 1978 and 1985.
Hanff was never shy about her fondness for cigarettes and martinis, but nevertheless lived to be 80, dying of diabetes in 1997 in New York City. The apartment building where she lived at 305 E. 72nd Street has been named "Charing Cross House" in her honor. A bronze plaque next to the front door commemorates her residence and authorship of the book.
84, Charing Cross Road is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural difference, and imaginative sympathy. For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence.
In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, "The phrase 'antiquarian booksellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive." Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover.
When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic -- but unsure she'll ever conquer "bilingual arithmetic." By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin.
Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. "i enclose two limp singles, i will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN i will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT." Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they're sharing news of Frank's family and Hanff's career. No doubt their letters would have continued, but in 1969, the firm's secretary informed her 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."
If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road,kiss it for me! I owe it so much. 近来广受好评的一本小书。承多位朋友推荐,忍不住也买了来看看。 第一印象:很赞的装帧,淡雅素朴,却极见用心。扉页上的藏书票,页脚的邮戳,算是两样小小的惊喜;...
评分常常会有这样的感觉吧,觉得自己就像一个人生活在这个世界。 多想推开一扇窗,就在窗外遇见一个能懂我一切的你。 只要一个你,就足以傲视所有的孤独。只要有你的爱怜,就觉得自己是时间最受宠爱的那朵花。只要有你的默认,就觉得自己有最举世的才华。 我们匆匆行走在每一个日子...
评分……while other people are reading fifty books I’m reading one book fifty times. Helene Hanff 在绝大多数时候,阅读是件孤单的事情。在无数的可能性中,我们在某一个时间某一个地点某一个人生阶段,遇到了某一本书,而被当中的某一段文字所启发...
评分……while other people are reading fifty books I’m reading one book fifty times. Helene Hanff 在绝大多数时候,阅读是件孤单的事情。在无数的可能性中,我们在某一个时间某一个地点某一个人生阶段,遇到了某一本书,而被当中的某一段文字所启发...
这个版本好美,班克劳夫特的序言也写得朴实动人,书末有很多补充材料,书中有主角照片,终于看到Helene和Frank真人了,不得不说电影的选角还是很到位的。另外不知道是我记性太差,还是中文版有删减,我不记得 Helene和Frank的妻子有那么多书信往来,之前一直记得是她只在 Frank 死后写过一封。Helene的语言很生动,比看中文版更有画面感,52年蜜月期与店员们的书信往来,感觉到一种唐顿庄园式的友善和命运的牵连。到了60年代,书信减少,大家都失散了,那种失落感是读中文版时忽略了的。也是第一次真正读懂 Frank 死后她写给朋友那封信,写出来的是情结,写不出来的是心酸。
评分#加入了电影版女主角的序言,对照陈建铭的汉译本,更能显出译者的喜爱和执迷,怪不得版权还没拿到就私自翻译起来,字字珠玑,兴趣才是第一生产力
评分i read the last letter of Hanff twice and wept.
评分#加入了电影版女主角的序言,对照陈建铭的汉译本,更能显出译者的喜爱和执迷,怪不得版权还没拿到就私自翻译起来,字字珠玑,兴趣才是第一生产力
评分温暖,感动
本站所有内容均为互联网搜索引擎提供的公开搜索信息,本站不存储任何数据与内容,任何内容与数据均与本站无关,如有需要请联系相关搜索引擎包括但不限于百度,google,bing,sogou 等
© 2025 book.quotespace.org All Rights Reserved. 小美书屋 版权所有