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Helene Hanff

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Helene Hanff


Born
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The United States
April 15, 1916

Died
April 09, 1997

Genre
Biographies & Memoirs


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 Unite ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 4.15 · 110,538 ratings · 18,052 reviews · 28 distinct works • Similar authors
84, Charing Cross Road
4.16 avg rating — 97,358 ratings — published 1970
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The Duchess of Bloomsbury S...
4.03 avg rating — 8,280 ratings — published 1973 — 33 editions
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Q's Legacy: A Delightful Ac...
4.05 avg rating — 2,265 ratings — published 1985 — 11 editions
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Underfoot in Show Business
4.25 avg rating — 877 ratings — published 1962 — 14 editions
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Letter from New York: BBC W...
4.25 avg rating — 802 ratings — published 1992 — 14 editions
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Apple of My Eye
3.95 avg rating — 723 ratings — published 1977 — 14 editions
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The Helene Hanff Omnibus: U...
4.49 avg rating — 95 ratings — published 1993 — 3 editions
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Queen of England: The Story...
4.32 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 1969 — 3 editions
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Butch Elects a Mayor
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3.73 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 1969 — 2 editions
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The Movers and Shakers: You...
4.38 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 1982
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More books by Helene Hanff…
Quotes by Helene Hanff  (?)
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“I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to "I hate to read new books," and I hollered "Comrade!" to whoever owned it before me.”
― Helene Hanff, 84, Charing Cross Road
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“I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.”
― Helene Hanff, 84, Charing Cross Road
tags: book-lover, books
249 likes
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“If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much.”
― Helene Hanff, 84, Charing Cross Road
tags: british, debt, england, kiss, please, writers
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