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    A Study Guide for Helene Hanff's "84 Charing Cross Road"
    A Study Guide for Helene Hanff's "84 Charing Cross Road"
    A Study Guide for Helene Hanff's "84 Charing Cross Road"
    Ebook38 pages27 minutes

    A Study Guide for Helene Hanff's "84 Charing Cross Road"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Helene Hanff's "84 Charing Cross Road," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 3, 2016
    ISBN9781535816434
    A Study Guide for Helene Hanff's "84 Charing Cross Road"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Helene Hanff's "84 Charing Cross Road" - Gale

      1

      84, Charing Cross Road

      Helene Hanff

      1970

      Introduction

      84, Charing Cross Road, published in 1970, is constructed from a collection of correspondence between the author and a London bookseller, Frank Doel. The relationship began as Hanff delved into the work of a professor at Cambridge University. Professor Q, as he is called, became the catalyst for Hanff's letter writing. Her admiration for the professor fueled her pursuit of classic literature, resulting in the inquiries comprising this work. 84, Charing Cross Road spans a twenty-year period, incidentally chronicling events abroad, such as Winston Churchill's 1951 election in London and the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination in 1960.

      This story thematically touches on the ideas of lack and sufficiency, whether it be Helene's bibliomania (obsession for books) or a black-market trade of eggs for a pair of pantyhose in London. It is a story of beginnings and endings as represented by each letter, from date to signature. The power of language figures prominently, presenting the challenge of inference in the white space of the text as Helene waits breathlessly for her next letter to arrive. Finally, it is a story of appearances for exactly the same reason: the only information the reader has is based on a series of letters, hardly the means by which one can accurately infer much about the characters. Despite what seem to be shortcomings, the appeal of this mysterious plot is what serves to entice and delight the reader's imagination.

      Author Biography

      Helene Hanff was born April 15, 1916, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although she attended Temple University for one year, she did not pursue a degree. Critics attribute the bulk of her literary background to her penchant for books. In her work entitled Q's Legacy, she speaks of the professor whose reading recommendations became the foundation for her literary education. A self-taught classicist, Hanff was a screenwriter and author. She was first employed as a manuscript reader for Paramount Pictures, and then accepted a position as a television scriptwriter for Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

      The author's work is largely comprised of publications for children and young adults, constituting a collection of

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