1949年的纽约，曼哈顿一间没有暖气的公寓里，三十三岁嗜书如命的穷作家海莲，偶然看到一则伦敦旧书店的广告，她苦于在纽约买不到心仪的书，便凭着一腔莽撞，开始向这个伦敦地址的马克斯-科恩书店写信购书。这一写，就写了二十年。 给海莲回信和寻书的，是书店的经理弗兰克，一个温雅古板又谦和善良的英国绅士。海莲的信热烈真挚，幽默活泼，看了好书欣喜若狂，看了坏书娇蛮大骂，关于书的评论文字，全是性灵之作。弗兰克博学儒雅，一直在兢兢业业设法寻求她要的好书。他们之间的距离，不再是伦敦到纽约的距离，而是书与书之间的距离。相知无远近，天涯若为邻。 后来，汉芙把自己和弗兰克以及其他店员之间的信件加以编选，变成了一本我们现在所见的小书《查令十字街84号》（84, Charing Cross Road）。这本书出乎意外地一版再版，被翻译成很多**的文字，成了爱书人的心头宝。而那家书店的地址——查令十字街84号，已经成为全球爱书人之间的一个暗号。 几十年来，人们读它、写它、演它，在这段传奇里彼此问候，相互取暖。

14 East 95th St.
New York City
October 5, 1949
Marks & Co.
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C. 2
England
Gentlemen:
Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print books. The phrase "antiquarian booksellers" scares me somewhat, as I equate "antique" with expensive. I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions, or in Barnes & Noble's grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies.
I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have clean secondhand copies of any of the books on the list, for no more than $5.00 each, will you consider this a purchase order and send them to me?
Very truly yours,
Helene Hanff
(Miss) Helene Hanff

MARKS & CO. , Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C. 2
25th October, 1949
Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, New York
U. S. A.
Dear Madam,
In reply to your letter of October 5th, we have managed to clear up two thirds of your problem. The three Hazlitt essays you want are contained in the Nonesuch Press edition of his Selected Essays and the Stevenson is found in Virginibus Puerisque. We are sending nice copies of both these by Book Post and we trust they will arrive safely in due course and that you will be pleased with them. Our invoice is enclosed with the books.
The Leigh Hunt essays are not going to be so easy but we will see if we can find an attractive volume with them all in. We haven't the Latin Bible you describe but we have a Latin New Testament, also a Greek New Testament, ordinary modern editions in cloth binding. Would you like these?
Yours faithfully,
FPD
For MARKS & CO.


MARKS & CO. , Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W. C. 2
9th November, 1949
Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, New York
U. S. A.
Dear Miss Hanff,
Your six dollars arrived safely, but we should feel very much easier if you would send your remittances by postal money order in future, as this would be quite a bit safer for you than entrusting dollar bills to the mails.
We are very happy you liked the Stevenson so much. We have sent off the New Testaments, with an invoice listing the amount due in both pounds and dollars, and we hope you will be pleased with them.
Yours faithfully,
FPD
For MARKS & CO.


14 East 95th St.
November 18, 1949
WHAT KIND OF A BLACK PROTESTANT BIBLE IS THIS?
Kindly inform the Church of England they have loused up the most beautiful prose ever written, whoever told them to tinker with the Vulgate Latin? They'll burn for it, you mark my words.
It's nothing to me, I'm Jewish myself. But I have a Catholic sister-in-law, a Methodist sister-in-law, a whole raft of Presbyterian cousins (through my Great-Uncle Abraham who converted) and an aunt who's a Christian Science healer, and I like to think none of them would countenance this Anglican Latin Bible if they knew it existed. (As it happens, they don't know Latin existed.)
Well, the hell with it. I've been using my Latin teacher's Vulgate, what I imagine I'll do is just not give it back till you find me one of my own.
I enclose $4 to cover the $3.88 due you, buy yourself a cup of coffee with the 12?. There's no post office near here and I am not running all the way down to Rockefeller Plaza to stand in line for a $3.88 money order. If I wait till I get down there for something else, I won't have the $3.88 any more. I have implicit faith in the U.S. Airmail and His Majesty's Postal Service.
Have you got a copy of Landor's Imaginary Conversations? I think there are several volumes, the one I want is the one with the Greek conversations. If it contains a dialogue between Aesop and Rhodope, that'll be the volume I want.
Helene Hanff


MARKS & CO., Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W. C. 2
26th November, 1949
Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, New York
U. S. A.
Dear Miss Hanff,
Your four dollars arrived safely and we have credited the 12 cents to your account.
We happen to have in stock Volume Ⅱ of the Works & Life of Walter Savage Landor which contains the Greek dialogues including the one mentioned in your letter, as well as the Roman dialogues. It is an old edition published in 1876, not very handsome but well bound and a good clean copy, and we are sending it off to you today with invoice enclosed.
I am sorry we made the mistake with the Latin Bible and will try to find a Vulgate for you. Not forgetting Leigh Hunt.
Yours faithfully,
FPD
For MARKS & CO.