Underfoot in Show Busines - Book Review

Underfoot in Show Business
By Helene Hanff
Originally published Harper Row NYC 1961
Re-published Andre Deutsch UK 1980

To the Reader
You may have noticed this book was not written by Noel Coward. It's a book about Show Business, where fame is the stock in trade, and its written by a name you've never heard of and probably can't pronounce. There is a simple explanation for this.
Each years hundreds of stagestruck kids arrive in NYC determined to crash the theatre, firmly convinced that they're destined to to be famous Broadway stars or playwrights. One in a thousand turns out to be Noel Coward. This book is about life among the other 999. By one of them.
Helene Hanff.

Cast of Characters
Helene Hanff
Maxine Stuart
Theresa Helburn

This is the story of Helene's life in New York trying to break into show business as a playwright. She was never successful. But she did write a funny book about her life in show business. This book was originally published in 1961. Her second book was published in 1971. That was the book that made her famous.

Helene was born and raised in Philadelphia by parents who loved the theatre. The family went to see theatre plays on a regular basis. Helene was inspired to write plays herself. After the end of the depression (I'm thinking around 1936 when she was 20), Helene submitted several plays to a playwriting competition run by the Theatre Guild in New York City. Then she received a letter from Theresa Helburn, the renowned Director of the Theatre Guild. Helene rushed up to NYC and was interviewed by Theresa Helburn. Helene underwent 4 days of playwriting tutoring. She travelled to NYC every Tuesday to be tutored by Theresa Helburn.

When the three winners of the scholarships were announced, Helene was one of the winners. By this time Helene had done one year of college and another year of working in various jobs as a secretary. So Helene packed up and moved to NYC permanently.

Helene writes about being involved with the Theatre Guild. Many of the Theatre Guild plays were flops but there was one musical that became a huge success. It was called Oklahoma, but that's not the name it started out with. It had another name, and Helene writes about what the PR team had to go through to change thousands of media releases, posters, programs etc.

As a theatre guild scholarship winner, Helen was required to attend a play during the entire scholastic process, from rehearsals to performance to reviews. In one of these plays, Helene met a young actress Maxine who was about the same age. They became fast friends and Maxine shows up a lot in this book. Because Helene was a poor writer, she would frequently have meals and sleep at Maxine's parents house.

Helene also writes about her roommates - or rather the others who lived in her floor. She writes about having to move from one building to a second to a third. She even mentions the orange crate book shelves. But not once does she mention writing letters to London, England. We know she was writing the letters during this time, because of her address changes. If you remember in 84 Charing Cross Road, she had her address at the top of all the letters. The two addresses in that book are the second and third apartment buildings she lived in. I believed she lived at the third apartment address until the year she died. (Helene died in 1997)

This is written in exactly the same humorous style as all the others. There is no change. No matter if you read this book first or last of all the 6 books that Helene wrote, the style is exactly the same. There are two reasons why I like helene so much. One reason is because of her humour. And the second reason is because just like me, she loved history and was not keen on fiction.

I loved this book. But knowing I love all the others as well, I am not surprised. I borrowed it from the library and I read it in 4 hours straight.

Memories - 84 Charing Cross Road

1 minute 26 seconds

The trailer of the original movie - made in 1987.
Gosh I havent seen it for such a long time.
This is one of my all time favourite movies and books.



1 minute 56 seconds

Another scene in the movie where Frank Dole thinks the mystery women is Ms Hanff. But when she gives her address, he realises it is not Ms Hanff, and starts reciting a love poem.

I really really want to see this movie. I dont think I have seen it for well over 15 years. I really have to find it on DVD somewhere.

Please excuse my going on about this author, book and movie, but you can blame the Book Hunter for that. She mentioned Helene Hanff in her post from last night.

Oh and yes, and if you are wondering why I am posting this at 4 o'clock in the morning? I had a really bad headache last night and went to be at 7.30 pm. Which is BEFORE my son. He goes to bed at 8. DH read him his stories and put him to bed. I woke up at 3.30 (that was 8 hours sleep) feeling much better. But now I cant go back to sleep. LOL

Q's Legacy - Book Review

Q's Legacy
Helene Hanff
Little Brown & Co 1985
Penguin 1986

Another parcel of books arrived from my favourite online bookstore. It arrived at 1pm lunch time today. I grabbed the one book I have been waiting 20 years to read. I read it in 5 hours even while I was working. The book is called Q's Legacy.


I fell in love with Helene Hanff and her letter writing campaign to buy books, in the movie 84 Charing Cross Road when I first saw it back around 1988. Over the next 10 years I found and read copies of all of Helene Hanff's books except two. I read 84 Charing Cross Road, Duchess of Bloomsbury, Underfoot in Showbusiness, and Apple of My Eye. I still have not read Letter from New York, and today I have finally read Q's Legacy.

I loved it.

It made me laugh. Helene was a wonderful writer - she died in 1997. This book is her autobiography. She writes about high school in Philadelphia and finding Q (Arthur Quiller Couch) in the public library. How she learnt to write plays, and how not to write prose. She writes about going to Secretarial School, and hating it, and then spending the next three years working in various offices as a secretary in Philadelphia. All this takes up 8 pages.

The rest of the books details her life in New York, her struggle to be a famous playwright, her correspondence with Marks & Co, and eventually how she came to write each of her books. She also writes about the stage plays based on 84 Charing Cross Road that have been produced in UK and New York. It was a hit in London, but not in NY. Understandable because 84 Charing Cross Road is an English address, not an American one.

This is not a long book - barely 180 pages. As I said, I read it in 5 hours. If I had not been working, I would have probably finished it in 3 hours.

If you have ever wanted to know more about Helene Hanff, and the origins of 84 Charing Cross Road, then this is the book to read.

HH Website

Old Books in the Old World - by Rostenberg & Stern

Old Books in the Old World
By Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern.
Oak Knoll Press 1996

This is a diary of Rostenberg and Stern's buying trips to England and Europe in the decade immediately following World War 2. It's not written in narrative, but as a diary. The ladies kept journals for those years (1947 - 1957), and excerpts of their diaries are printed, along with updates (or Retrospects as they are called).


In 1947 the first year they went to Europe, the ladies sailed to England by boat. The trip took 7 days from Hoboken (Across the Hudson River from NYC - in New Jersey I think) to Southampton, England. I'm not familiar with any of the English Antiquarian Bookshops - except one. Marks and Co at 84 Charing Cross Road. But there was no mention of Frank Doel. The ladies also took another boat to Calais, and then to Paris where they purchased more books. Later on the same trip, they also went to Strasbourg, Basle and The Hague.

In later years Misses Rostenberg & Stern visited London regularly, also Oxford, Cambridge, Vienna, Milan, Zurich, Florence, Geneva and Brussels. In 1954 the ladies FLEW to London for the first time. That trip took just seventeen hours rather than seven days. But then they went back to taking the boat.

Even after 1957, they still made the trip every summer, but they no longer recorded the shops they visited or the books they purchased. By then they were so well known, they were being welcomed everywhere they went. Prices were also rising as well.

This book is not for reading like a novel, since it's not a narrative. You have to be a real Bibliographic fan to read all the book titles and various phrases in French and German. It would have been helpful to have a small language glossary at the back. Otherwise it was a good book.

Oh yes, and this is my third and last book for the Bibliography Challenge. I will continue reading other books about books (I have quite a few), but I need to work on the Canadian Challenge before the New Year and all the New Challenges start LOL.

Altered Books - Deja Vu

I swear I never knew anything about Scott at Fine Books doing anything on Altered Books. There's nothing mentioned in his blog about it. So when my (July/Aug) copy of Fine Books & Collections arrived at my home today, I was stunned to see in big letters at the bottom left corner of the cover, the following words - Under the Knife ALTERED BOOKS.

Naturally of course I have to read the article first. Usually I would have read Nicolas Basbanes column first. That was actually the third item I read today because then I just had to read the article about Books in Films. The magazine lists 12 films related to books that are worth watching. I was VERY pleased to see probably my all time favourite book/film listed - 84 Charing Cross Road. I was also please to see mentioned, a Johnny Depp movie called The Ninth Gate, which I desperately want to watch - but cannot find anywhere in this city!!!