Letter from New York by Helene Hanff
“On the first warm March day I fling up the window next to my typewriter table. I did this last March when I was writing a magazine article, and one morning just as I finished retyping page nine, a March breeze suddenly blew page ten out the window and down to the sidewalk. I had to race out of the flat, ride down to the lobby and chase it a block and a half up Second Avenue to the open-air vegetable market before I finally ran down page ten halfway under the spinach bin.
This March I’ve got a new book in the typewriter and I don’t want any trouble.”
Helene Hanff, Letter from New York, March 1979
Illustration © Bruce Eric Kaplan
This update has been such a long time coming!
I am delighted and over the moon to announce the forthcoming publication of a brand-new edition of Helene Hanff’s Letter from New York – another literary jewel from the author of 84, Charing Cross Road.
To showcase this wonderful book, we commissioned the New York Times bestselling author Jean Hanff Korelitz to pen a new introduction (whose book The Plot you might have read in recent times - if not go out and get it immediately - it’s a fabulous read!). She is a cousin of Helene Hanff’s, and was inspired to become a writer after meeting the author as a teenager.
“Reading these charming pieces brings back the New York of my own childhood, the storefronts and fashions, the errands and quirks and tastes and smells of the city I grew up in.
Jean Hanff Korelitz, January 2023
(This article in The Guardian is a fantastic introduction to Jean’s writing, and the TV and film adaptations of her books too. And for more information about her wonderful pop up book group - the New York City-based BOOKTHEWRITER, read more here! This is where I first discovered Jean, after joining an online book group in lockdown with another of my favourite authors - Anne Enright. It turned out to be serendipitous - like so many other things associated with this book!)
The front cover was specially designed by New Yorker cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan, also a fan of the author and a resident of New York City too.
I was already an admirer of Bruce’s illustrations, but when I read this interview with him in the New Yorker - with art editor of the New Yorker Françoise Mouly - I suddenly realised that he too loved Helene Hanff’s books:
“I love any and all autobiographical essays by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron; Manhattan, When I Was Young by Mary Cantwell; Underfoot in Show Business by Helene Hanff; Original Story by Arthur Laurents; Act One by Moss Hart. I could go on and on.”
Bruce Eric Kaplan, 3 June 2019
Although New York is a large city, it turns out that it is also a very small world: thanks to Jean and her wonderful contacts, a few emails later and I was already delighted to have Bruce on board. A match made in heaven. I hope Helene Hanff would be as delighted as I am with this gorgeous front cover - and detailed illustrations inside the book too…
Over several years, Helene Hanff read aloud stories of her life in New York for BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. This book is a collection of selected scripts from this series, composed with a British audience in mind, in which the author offers us a glimpse into her own everyday tales of the city.
What started out as a six-month trial in 1978 eventually turned into a six-year project, during which time Helene Hanff captivated radio audiences with her monthly broadcasts – each one a love letter to her beloved NYC.
Written in her trademark whimsical and upbeat style, in Letter from New York, Helene transports us to the heart of Manhattan in the 1980s, describing her favourite places, people and pets with gentle humour, and introducing the reader to the ups and downs of life in a high-rise apartment building in New York City (“the last small town in America”).
We meet Bentley, the Old English Sheepdog belonging to a neighbour who captured the author’s heart; we take a stroll through the beautiful Shakespeare’s Garden in Central Park; and we join the author to enjoy annual city parades down Fifth Avenue – especially the St Patrick’s Day parade, when the whole of New York turns green.
And we are introduced to Helene’s friends: Arlene, whose glamorous social life – and wardrobe – puts Helene's tiny apartment and simple writer’s life into perspective, and Nina, whose garden on the sixteenth-floor overflows with flowers and fruit trees.
(I want to tell you all about the star of this book - Arlene - who I had the utter pleasure of chatting to several times on the phone after I managed to find her in New York last year. More to follow on that: she deserves a blog post - a book even! - all to herself.)
Finally, we accompany the author as she travels to England to celebrate the opening night of the dramatisation of her best-selling book 84, Charing Cross Road in the Ambassador Theatre, London.
Long before the cast of Friends – and Sarah Jessica Parker’s iconic evocation of life in the city – recreated a New York existence for us to experience vicariously, these 5-minute vignettes were the perfect way for international readers and native New Yorkers alike, to revel in the quotidian as well as the glamour of city life, and to discover the unexpected hidden gems – and treasured traditions – of New York City.
Letter from New York is still a delight to read, forty years after it was first written – a timeless and beguiling tale of everyday life in this great city, by one of the best-loved authors of the twenthieth-century.
The book will be published in September this year, but you can pre-order copies here and we will post them out as soon as they arrive in our warehouse (estimated May 2023).
Helene Hanff (1916–97) was an American author, journalist and playwright, who captured the hearts of readers everywhere with her book 84, Charing Cross Road – an account of her love affair with an antiquarian bookshop in London.
She was born in Philadelphia but moved to her adopted city of New York, where she studied playwriting and wrote scripts for live television. Later she penned articles for The New Yorker and Harper’s magazines before becoming the author of books for adults and children.
The New York apartment building where she lived and wrote at 305 East 72nd Street has been named ‘Charing Cross House’ in her honour and a bronze plaque next to the front door celebrates her residence; in London a matching plaque on the site of the original building commemorates the bookshop at 84, Charing Cross Road.
In researching the author’s life, I stumbled across this wonderful article in The Oldie by Valerie Grove, which I can thoroughly recommend for anyone new to Helene Hanff and die-hard fans alike!
And finally, if you are in need of a copy of 84, Charing Cross Road then head over to the wonderful people at Slightly Foxed, whose gorgeous edition is one of my all-time favourites.