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woodcuts alone are worth ten times the price of the book. What a weird world we live in when so beautiful a thing can be owned for life—for the price of a ticket to a Broadway movie palace, or 1/50th the cost of having one tooth capped.
    Well, if your books cost what they’re worth I couldn’t afford them!
    You’ll be fascinated to learn (from me that hates novels) that I finally got round to Jane Austen and went out of my mind over Pride & Prejudice which I can’t bring myself to take back to the library till you find me a copy of my own.
    Regards to Nora and the wage-slaves.

HH

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37 Oakfield Court
Haslemere Road
Crouch End
London, N.8

24–8–52

    Dear Helene:
    Here I am again to thank you most gratefully for our share in the wonderful parcels you so kindly sent to Marks & Co. I wish I could send you something in return.
    By the way, Helene, this week we have become the proud possessors of a car, not a new one, mind you, but it goes and that’s what matters isn’t it? Now maybe you will tell us you’re paying us a call?
    Mrs. Boulton put up two cousins of mine who came down from Scotland for a couple of weeks and they were very comfortable. She bedded them and I fed them. Now if by any chance you can manage the fare to England next year for the Coronation, Mrs. Boulton will see that you have a bed.
    Well, I’ll say so long for now and send you our best wishes and thanks once again for the meat and eggs.
    Yours sincerely,

Nora

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Marks & Co., Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C.2
    26th August, 1952
    Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, New York
U.S.A.
    Dear Helene,
    I am writing once again to thank you on behalf of all here for your three very exciting parcels which arrived a few days ago. It is really too good of you to spend your hard-earned cash on us in this way and I can assure you that we do appreciate your kind thoughts of us.
    We had about thirty volumes of Loeb Classics come in a few days ago but alas, no Horace, Sappho or Catullus.
    I am taking a couple of weeks’ holiday commencing September 1, but as I have just bought a car we are completely “broke” so will have to take things easily. Nora has a sister who lives by the sea so we are hoping she will take pity on us and invite us to stay with her. It is my first car so we are all very thrilled with it—even though it is an old 1939 model. So long as it gets us to places without breaking down too often we shall be quite happy.
    With all good wishes,

Frank Doel

     
    In August 1952, Frank bought this 1939
Morris 12, then a major purchase.
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14 East 95th St.
New York City

September 18, 1952

    Frankie, guess who came while you were away on vacation? SAM PEPYS! Please thank whoever mailed him for me, he came a week ago, stepped out of four pages of some tabloid, three honest navy-blue volumes of him; I read the tabloid over lunch and started Sam after dinner.
    He says to tell you he’s overJOYED to be here, he was previously owned by a slob who never even bothered to cut the pages. I’m wrecking them, it’s the thinnest India paper I ever saw. We call it “onion skin” over here and it’s a good name for it. But heavier paper would have taken up six or seven volumes so I’m grateful for the India. I only have three bookshelves and very few books left to throw out.
    I houseclean my books every spring and throw out those I’m never going to read again like I throw out clothes I’m never going to wear again. It shocks everybody. My friends are peculiar about books. They read all the best sellers, they get through them as fast as possible, I think they skip a lot. And they NEVER read anything a second time so they don’t remember a word of it a year later. But they are profoundly shocked to see me drop a book in the wastebasket or give it away. The way they look at it, you buy a book, you read it, you put it on the shelf, you never open it again for the rest of your life but YOU DON’T THROW IT OUT! NOT