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 12c. 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.
----
14 East 95th St.
New York City
December 8, 1949
Sir:
(It feels witless to keep writing “Gentlemen” when the same solitary soul is obviously taking care of everything for me.)
Savage Landor arrived safely and promptly fell open to a Roman dialogue where two cities had just been destroyed by war and everybody was being crucified and begging passing Roman soldiers to run them through and end the agony. It’ll be a relief to turn to Aesop and Rhodope where all you have to worry about is a famine. 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.
I enclose a dollar which Brian (British boy friend of Kay upstairs) says will cover the /8/ I owe you, you forgot to translate it.
Now then. Brian told me you are all rationed to 2 ounces of meat per family per week and one egg per person per month and I am simply appalled. He has a catalogue from a British firm here which flies food from Denmark to his mother, so I am sending a small Christmas present to Marks & Co. I hope there will be enough to go round, he says the Charing Cross Road bookshops are “all quite small.”
I’m sending it c/o you, FPD, whoever you are.
Noel.
Helene Hanff
----
14 East 95th St.
December 9, 1949
FPD! CRISIS!
I sent that package off. The chief item in it was a 6-pound ham, I figured you could take it to a butcher and get it sliced up so everybody would have some to take home.
But I just noticed on your last invoice it says: “B. Marks. M. Cohen.” Props.
ARE THEY KOSHER? I could rush a tongue over.
ADVISE PLEASE!
Helene Hanff
----
Marks & Co., Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C.2
20th December, 1949
Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, New York
U.S.A.
Dear Miss Hanff,
Just a note to let you know that your gift parcel arrived safely today and the contents have been shared out between the staff. Mr. Marks and Mr. Cohen insisted that we divide it up among ourselves and not include “the bosses.” I should just like to add that everything in the parcel was something that we either never see or can only be had through the black market. It was extremely kind and generous of you to think of us in this way and we are all extremely grateful.
We all wish to express
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 12c. 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.
----
14 East 95th St.
New York City
December 8, 1949
Sir:
(It feels witless to keep writing “Gentlemen” when the same solitary soul is obviously taking care of everything for me.)
Savage Landor arrived safely and promptly fell open to a Roman dialogue where two cities had just been destroyed by war and everybody was being crucified and begging passing Roman soldiers to run them through and end the agony. It’ll be a relief to turn to Aesop and Rhodope where all you have to worry about is a famine. 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.
I enclose a dollar which Brian (British boy friend of Kay upstairs) says will cover the /8/ I owe you, you forgot to translate it.
Now then. Brian told me you are all rationed to 2 ounces of meat per family per week and one egg per person per month and I am simply appalled. He has a catalogue from a British firm here which flies food from Denmark to his mother, so I am sending a small Christmas present to Marks & Co. I hope there will be enough to go round, he says the Charing Cross Road bookshops are “all quite small.”
I’m sending it c/o you, FPD, whoever you are.
Noel.
Helene Hanff
----
14 East 95th St.
December 9, 1949
FPD! CRISIS!
I sent that package off. The chief item in it was a 6-pound ham, I figured you could take it to a butcher and get it sliced up so everybody would have some to take home.
But I just noticed on your last invoice it says: “B. Marks. M. Cohen.” Props.
ARE THEY KOSHER? I could rush a tongue over.
ADVISE PLEASE!
Helene Hanff
----
Marks & Co., Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C.2
20th December, 1949
Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, New York
U.S.A.
Dear Miss Hanff,
Just a note to let you know that your gift parcel arrived safely today and the contents have been shared out between the staff. Mr. Marks and Mr. Cohen insisted that we divide it up among ourselves and not include “the bosses.” I should just like to add that everything in the parcel was something that we either never see or can only be had through the black market. It was extremely kind and generous of you to think of us in this way and we are all extremely grateful.
We all wish to express
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