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the books you ever sent me and five teeth.
    I plan to crawl out of bed before dawn on Coronation Day to attend the ceremony by radio. Will be thinking of you all.
    cheers

hh

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Marks & Co., Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C.2
    11th June, 1953
    Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, New York
U.S.A.
    Dear Helene,
    Just a note to let you know that your parcel arrived safely on June 1, just in time for our Coronation Day celebrations. We had a number of friends at home to watch TV on the day, and so the ham was most welcome to provide them with something to eat. It was delicious, and we all drank your health as well as the Queen’s.
    It was most kind of you to spend your hard-earned money on us like this, and the rest of the staff join me in saying thanks a lot.
    With very best wishes,
Yours sincerely,

Frank Doel

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Boldmere Road
Eastcote
Pinner
Middlesex

23–9–53

    Helene dear,
    Am dashing this off to say you must send nothing at all to the shop for Christmas, everything is now off rations and even nylons are available in all the better shops. Please save your money as the most important thing after your dentist is your trip to England. Only don’t come in ’54 as I shall be out of the country, come in ’55 when we shall be back and you can stay with us.
    Doug writes that our “call” may come at any moment as we are next in line for married quarters. The children and I are hoping to join him before Christmas. He is well and happy on Bahrein Island in the middle of the Persian Gulf (if you’ve got an atlas) but will return to the RAF base at Habbaniya in Iraq when our quarters are available and we will join him there, all being well.
    Write again soon. Even if I do “pop off” Mother will forward your letter.
    Love and best wishes—

Cecily

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14 East 95th St.

September 2, 1955

    DO YOU MEAN TO SIT THERE AND TELL ME YOU’VE BEEN PUBLISHING THESE MAMMOTH CATALOGUES ALL THESE YEARS AND THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU EVER BOTHERED TO SEND ME ONE! THOU VARLET?
    Don’t remember which restoration playwright called everybody a Varlet, I always wanted to use it in a sentence.
    As it happens, the only thing which MIGHT interest me is the CatulIus, it’s not the Loeb Classics but it sounds like it’ll do. If you still have it, mail it and I’ll send you the –/6s 2d as soon as you translate it, Kay and Brian moved to the suburbs and left me without a translator.
    I shall be obliged if you will send Nora and the girls to church every Sunday for the next month to pray for the continued health and strength of the messrs. gilliam, reese, snider, campanella, robinson, hodges, furillo, podres, newcombe and labine, collectively known as The Brooklyn Dodgers. If they lose this World Series I shall Do Myself In and then where will you be?
    Have you got De Tocqueville’s Journey to America? Somebody borrowed mine and never gave it back. Why is it that people who wouldn’t dream of stealing anything else think it’s perfectly all right to steal books?
    Regards to Megan if she’s still there. And what’s become of Cecily, is she back from Iraq?
    h.h.

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Marks & Co., Booksellers
84, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C.2
    13th December, 1955
    Miss Helene Hanff
14 East 95th Street
New York 28, N.Y.
U.S.A.
    Dear Helene,
    I feel very guilty about not writing to you before this, but you can put it down to a dose of ’flu which kept me away from the shop for a couple of weeks and a sudden rush of work since I came back.
    About the Catullus in our catalogue. This was already sold before we received your letter but I have sent you an edition which contains the Latin text with a verse translation by Sir Richard Burton and also a prose translation by Leonard Smithers, printed in large type, and all for $3.78. The binding is not very handsome but it’s a good clean copy. We have no edition of De Tocqueville but will keep looking for one for you.
    Megan is still here but planning to go to South Africa