Helene Hanff

Ms. Hanff was a writer who had wanted to be a playwright, but had little success. Ms. Hanff wrote for television, as well as several non-fiction books and various articles for magazines. For twenty years, Ms. Hanff had an ongoing correspondence with the chief buyer at a London bookstore called Marks & Co. After all those years, Ms. Hanff took their correspondence and wrote a book about it called 84, Charing Cross Road, the address of the booksellers. This book was much more popular than Ms. Hanff expected, earning her a great deal of fan mail from people who wanted to know what happened next.

For Ms. Hanff, what happened next was the publication of the book in England. Ms. Hanff was invited to visit London in order to attend several publicity events surrounding the book. Ms. Hanff had always wanted to go to London; therefore, she jumped at...