Helene Hanff

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Helene Hanff (born April 15, 1916 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † April 9, 1997 in New York ) was an American writer and screenwriter .

Life

After breaking off her English course, Helene Hanff first worked as a typist, later as an editor and screenwriter for television series and the theater. She became famous for her bestseller 84, Charing Cross Road , published in England and the USA in 1970 . In it she documents her correspondence with the London antiquarian bookseller Frank Doel from 1949 to 1969. The initially purely business correspondence increasingly developed into a pen friendship that lasted until Doel's death in 1968, although they never met in person. Several invitations to London failed either because of the financial means or because of the diseases of hemp. In 1986 the story of Hanff and Doel was filmed under the title Between the Lines with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins in the leading roles. Although the book had great success in England and the USA, it was only published in Germany in 2002, where it was in the bottom of the bestseller lists in five weeks .

On the occasion of the book publication in England, her London publisher invited her on a reading tour in 1971. This is how the journey came about which, by her own admission, she had long dreamed of. She describes her experiences of her six-week stay in the form of a diary in The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street .

Since her accounts of her life were popular with the public, she wrote a five-minute contribution to the BBC about life in New York every month from 1978 to 1984 . These appeared as a collection under the title Letters from New York .

Helene Hanff died in New York in 1997.

Works

Single issues
  • 84, Charing Cross Road. A friendship in letters ("84, Charing Cross Road"). Goldmann, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-442-73129-1 .
  • The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. An American in London ("The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street"). Goldmann, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-442-73212-3 .
  • Letters from New York ("Letter from New York"). Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-455-02653-2 .
Work edition
  • The Helene Hanff Omnibus . Warner Books, London 1993, ISBN 0-7515-0776-8 (Contents: “Underfoot in show business”, “84, Charing Cross Road”, “The duchess of Bloomsbury Street”, “Apple of my eye” and “Q's legacy ").

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Doel, Frank. In: snaccooperative.org. SNAC Cooperative, accessed June 5, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Hanff, Helene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American author
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH April 9, 1997
Place of death new York