Happy Birthday Helene Hanff!
“In our building, my friend Nina gave a birthday dinner for our mutual friend Richard a few weeks ago… The night of Richard’s birthday dinner we had cocktails on
the terrace and I made Nina give me the names of everything growing there, so you’d know what can be done with a narrow cement terrace and a green thumb. Blooming in Nina’s garden are ageratum, miniature amaryllis, miniature dahlias, dianthus, freesias, marigolds, pansies, petunias, phlox, portulacas, snap- dragons, ranunculus and rose-live-forever.”
Helene Hanff, Letter from New York (Manderley Press, 2023, p.49)
To mark Helene Hanff’s 107th birthday today, I'm raising a glass (well, a coffee mug) to this wonderful author and her fabulous books.
Obviously I'm biased - I love Letter from New York so much that I just had to republish it. But I'm interested to know your favourite book of hers too. So many of you have been in touch to tell me how much she inspired, amused, soothed and diverted you and I'd love to know more. Go for it in the comment section below!
In the meantime, in homage to Helene, and her love of birthdays, good friends, New York City, dogs and general party fever, here's one of my favourite excerpts from Letter from New York. How I wish I could have been at this particular party...
"The most fun we ever had on the step was the summer night when I gave a birthday party for my friend Duke. All his close friends came – Tinker, the Yorkie; Butch, the black and white terrier; Stanley, the dachshund; Malcolm and Benjamin, the West Highland brothers; Czarina, the white Russian wolfhound; and of course, the dog Nina refers to as ‘Dukey’s cousin Chester’, the sheepdog. I bought birthday party hats with rubber bands under the chin; every dog wore his or her hat with solemn importance.
Eric’s delicatessen across the street catered for the party. The birthday cake was a roast chicken, with candles stuck behind the legs and wings. Heinz, who owns the deli, put the chicken on a platter and surrounded it with chunk ends of roast beef which he donated. We lit the candles, and I carried the lighted chicken across the street to our side. And the dogs were so awed by that platter, and by the fact that it was a party, that nobody jumped up, everybody waited for his mother to put his piece of chicken and his end of roast beef on a paper birthday plate, and nobody tried to eat anybody else’s. It was remarkable."
This brand new edition is introduced by a cousin of Helene’s - the New York Times bestselling author Jean Hanff Korelitz, and illustrated by the acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan.
We expect copies of Letter from New York to arrive at the end of April and will post out all the pre-orders straight away.
The specially designed bookmarks have already arrived, the yellow tissue paper and silk ribbons are waiting and ready, and we are raring to go.
Click below to reserve your copy - this title will be available exclusively via Manderley Press until September (when it will be on sale in every good bookshop!). In the meantime, happy birthday Helene!