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Q's Legacy: A Delightful Account of a Lifelong Love Affair with Books
This memoir tells the remarkable story of how Helene Hanff came to write 84, Charing Cross Road, and how its success changed her. Hanff recalls her serendipitous discovery of a volume of lectures by a Cambridge don, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. She devoured Q’s book, and, wanting to read all the books he recommended, began to order them from a small store in London at 84, Charing Cross Road.
Thus began a correspondence that became an enormously popular book, play, television production, and movie, and that finally led to the trip to England -- and a visit to Q’s study -- that she recounts in this exuberant memoir. Hanff pays her debt to her mentor and shares her joyous adventures with her many fans.
"Reading Helene Hanff’s book is like making a new friend -- a charming, wise, and funny one." -- Betty Rollin
"A potpourri . . . easy and assured . . . A delightful companion for the odd hour." -- San Francisco Chronicle
"Hanff’s charm is such that when she exults . . . we exult right along with her." -- Kirkus Reviews
Thus began a correspondence that became an enormously popular book, play, television production, and movie, and that finally led to the trip to England -- and a visit to Q’s study -- that she recounts in this exuberant memoir. Hanff pays her debt to her mentor and shares her joyous adventures with her many fans.
"Reading Helene Hanff’s book is like making a new friend -- a charming, wise, and funny one." -- Betty Rollin
"A potpourri . . . easy and assured . . . A delightful companion for the odd hour." -- San Francisco Chronicle
"Hanff’s charm is such that when she exults . . . we exult right along with her." -- Kirkus Reviews
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1985
52 people are currently reading
2809 people want to read
About the author
Helene Hanff
28 books721 followersHelene Hanff (April 15, 1916–April 9, 1997) was an American writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is best known as the author of the book 84 Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a play, teleplay, and film of the same name.
Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Yorker, goes far beyond the charm of that one book. She called her 1961 memoir Underfoot in Show Business, and it chronicled the struggle of an ambitious young playwright to make it in the world of New York theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. She worked in publicists' offices and spent summers on the "straw hat" circuit along the East Coast of the United States, writing plays that were admired by some of Broadway's leading producers but which somehow never saw the light of day.
She wrote and edited scripts for a variety of early television dramas produced out of New York, all the while continuing to try and move from being what she called "one of the 999 out of 1,000 who don't become Noel Coward." When the bulk of television production moved to California, her work slowly dried up, and she turned to writing for magazines and, eventually, to the books that made her reputation.
First published in 1970, the epistolary work 84 Charing Cross Road chronicles her 20 years of correspondence with Frank Doel, the chief buyer for Marks & Co., a London bookshop, on which she depended for the obscure classics and British literature titles around which her passion for self-education revolved. She became intimately involved in the lives of the shop's staff, sending them food parcels during England's post-war shortages and sharing with them details of her life in Manhattan.
Due to financial difficulties and an aversion to travel, she put off visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968 from peritonitis from a burst appendix, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.
In the 1987 film of 84 Charing Cross Road, Hanff was played by Anne Bancroft, while Anthony Hopkins took the part of Frank Doel. Anne Jackson had earlier played Hanff in a 1975 adaptation of the book for British television. Ellen Burstyn recreated the role on Broadway in 1982 at the Nederlander Theater in New York City.
She later put her obsession with British scholar Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch to use in a book called Q's Legacy. Other books include Apple of My Eye, an idiosyncratic guide to New York City, and A Letter from New York (1992), which reprinted talks she gave on the BBC's Woman's Hour between 1978 and 1985.
Hanff was never shy about her fondness for cigarettes and martinis, but nevertheless lived to be 80, dying of diabetes in 1997 in New York City. The apartment building where she lived at 305 E. 72nd Street has been named "Charing Cross House" in her honor. A bronze plaque next to the front door commemorates her residence and authorship of the book.
Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Yorker, goes far beyond the charm of that one book. She called her 1961 memoir Underfoot in Show Business, and it chronicled the struggle of an ambitious young playwright to make it in the world of New York theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. She worked in publicists' offices and spent summers on the "straw hat" circuit along the East Coast of the United States, writing plays that were admired by some of Broadway's leading producers but which somehow never saw the light of day.
She wrote and edited scripts for a variety of early television dramas produced out of New York, all the while continuing to try and move from being what she called "one of the 999 out of 1,000 who don't become Noel Coward." When the bulk of television production moved to California, her work slowly dried up, and she turned to writing for magazines and, eventually, to the books that made her reputation.
First published in 1970, the epistolary work 84 Charing Cross Road chronicles her 20 years of correspondence with Frank Doel, the chief buyer for Marks & Co., a London bookshop, on which she depended for the obscure classics and British literature titles around which her passion for self-education revolved. She became intimately involved in the lives of the shop's staff, sending them food parcels during England's post-war shortages and sharing with them details of her life in Manhattan.
Due to financial difficulties and an aversion to travel, she put off visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968 from peritonitis from a burst appendix, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.
In the 1987 film of 84 Charing Cross Road, Hanff was played by Anne Bancroft, while Anthony Hopkins took the part of Frank Doel. Anne Jackson had earlier played Hanff in a 1975 adaptation of the book for British television. Ellen Burstyn recreated the role on Broadway in 1982 at the Nederlander Theater in New York City.
She later put her obsession with British scholar Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch to use in a book called Q's Legacy. Other books include Apple of My Eye, an idiosyncratic guide to New York City, and A Letter from New York (1992), which reprinted talks she gave on the BBC's Woman's Hour between 1978 and 1985.
Hanff was never shy about her fondness for cigarettes and martinis, but nevertheless lived to be 80, dying of diabetes in 1997 in New York City. The apartment building where she lived at 305 E. 72nd Street has been named "Charing Cross House" in her honor. A bronze plaque next to the front door commemorates her residence and authorship of the book.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 367 reviews
June 20, 2015
This seems to be the least-loved of Hanff's books. Readers apparently expect another book full of dated entries, be they letters or diary entries, and are nonplussed by this fairly straightforward narrative.
I think Q rounds out her other books very well exactly because it's more conventional in structure. 84, Charing Cross Road is the book that makes readers fall in love with Hanff's voice. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street makes those fans cheer, because (spoiler alert!) she finally gets to go to England. And Q's Legacy is the closest Hanff comes to fulfilling her fans' natural curiosity about her life and background.
Hanff keeps her cards pretty close to her vest, even when she finally tells us a bit about herself. There's nothing about her parents or her childhood here – the book starts when she's 18 – and the closest she comes to any mention of romance is admitting that she "hankered after" one of her teachers at the business school she attended after high school. As soon as her classmates learned of this crush,
they went to work devising ploys to get him for me. The best was Rita's. She got up in Business English class and suggested that after every Friday's English test, Mr. Smoter award a kiss to whoever got the best score. She made him stick to this award for the rest of the 90 days. Which was one reason why I had such a good time in that school I was almost sorry when the course ended.
Note that "almost." If you know anything about Helene Hanff, you'll know that business school and the sort of future it promised were a horrible fit for her. Instead of going on to be a secretary, Hanff became an autodidact: reading at night and picking up work she could do at home by day. (She considered office work as bad as prison, if not worse.) She also began writing "bad plays." "They specialized in plotless charm," she explains, and that's probably accurate – because if it didn't sound so mean, one could say that's a perfect description of the writing that made Hanff famous.
And yet we love it. Maybe you can get away with a minimum of plot, if you're charming enough.
Q's Legacy begins long before the events of 84, and closes long after Duchess. It stretches into Hanff's old age, including a terrifyingly funny encounter with cataract surgery. (Hint: If an eye surgeon says you won't be able to read for a month after the operation, he doesn't mean reading will give you a headache or tire you out. He means you won't be able to see printed letters. Or printed anything. Yikes. Hanff learned this when she tried to take the elevator and "confronted a double row of buttons which no longer had floor numbers on them." Only Helene Hanff could make a month of this sort of blindness funny and fun to read about.)
If you're looking for a weekend of pleasure, get your hands on all three of her books and read them in order of publication. Then cuss me out for making you think you'd need a whole weekend to read these slim, joyful works. You will if you take frequent breaks to make tea and fresh scones, which you'll be in the mood for after reading so much about England.
(Let me know if you need a recipe for scones, btw. I've been told mine rival any you can get in England, possibly because the English don't understand the magic of miniature chocolate chips.)
I think Q rounds out her other books very well exactly because it's more conventional in structure. 84, Charing Cross Road is the book that makes readers fall in love with Hanff's voice. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street makes those fans cheer, because (spoiler alert!) she finally gets to go to England. And Q's Legacy is the closest Hanff comes to fulfilling her fans' natural curiosity about her life and background.
Hanff keeps her cards pretty close to her vest, even when she finally tells us a bit about herself. There's nothing about her parents or her childhood here – the book starts when she's 18 – and the closest she comes to any mention of romance is admitting that she "hankered after" one of her teachers at the business school she attended after high school. As soon as her classmates learned of this crush,
they went to work devising ploys to get him for me. The best was Rita's. She got up in Business English class and suggested that after every Friday's English test, Mr. Smoter award a kiss to whoever got the best score. She made him stick to this award for the rest of the 90 days. Which was one reason why I had such a good time in that school I was almost sorry when the course ended.
Note that "almost." If you know anything about Helene Hanff, you'll know that business school and the sort of future it promised were a horrible fit for her. Instead of going on to be a secretary, Hanff became an autodidact: reading at night and picking up work she could do at home by day. (She considered office work as bad as prison, if not worse.) She also began writing "bad plays." "They specialized in plotless charm," she explains, and that's probably accurate – because if it didn't sound so mean, one could say that's a perfect description of the writing that made Hanff famous.
And yet we love it. Maybe you can get away with a minimum of plot, if you're charming enough.
Q's Legacy begins long before the events of 84, and closes long after Duchess. It stretches into Hanff's old age, including a terrifyingly funny encounter with cataract surgery. (Hint: If an eye surgeon says you won't be able to read for a month after the operation, he doesn't mean reading will give you a headache or tire you out. He means you won't be able to see printed letters. Or printed anything. Yikes. Hanff learned this when she tried to take the elevator and "confronted a double row of buttons which no longer had floor numbers on them." Only Helene Hanff could make a month of this sort of blindness funny and fun to read about.)
If you're looking for a weekend of pleasure, get your hands on all three of her books and read them in order of publication. Then cuss me out for making you think you'd need a whole weekend to read these slim, joyful works. You will if you take frequent breaks to make tea and fresh scones, which you'll be in the mood for after reading so much about England.
(Let me know if you need a recipe for scones, btw. I've been told mine rival any you can get in England, possibly because the English don't understand the magic of miniature chocolate chips.)
January 23, 2022
Click here to hear my thoughts on Helene Hanff, this book, and all her other books over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
Another charmer from Helene Hanff, this one fleshes out the story surrounding 84, Charing Cross Road in both directions. First, we learn how she was introduced to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, the English lecturer whose books served as higher education and a window into the magical world of literature for Helene. But also, we learn about what it was like to be the author of a cult classic. From answering fan mail to getting back over to London to watch the filming of a BBC adaptation of 84, she took it all in stride while still somehow struggling financially.
The sections about her defiant contact lenses had me howling with laughter!
Another charmer from Helene Hanff, this one fleshes out the story surrounding 84, Charing Cross Road in both directions. First, we learn how she was introduced to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, the English lecturer whose books served as higher education and a window into the magical world of literature for Helene. But also, we learn about what it was like to be the author of a cult classic. From answering fan mail to getting back over to London to watch the filming of a BBC adaptation of 84, she took it all in stride while still somehow struggling financially.
The sections about her defiant contact lenses had me howling with laughter!
August 18, 2016
This book is purely for Anglophiles of which I am the biggest. I have read this book several times now, each reading has me looking up streets on maps of London and books on Amazon.
Probably not for everyone but a delight for those who already love Q and London.
Probably not for everyone but a delight for those who already love Q and London.
July 30, 2023
I’m back at Q for scrabble again. In three rounds I have yet to draw a V or Z and I actually have titles ready for those letters. This is the second round in a row where I’ve drawn Q, making finding a book all the more tricky. There are only so many books with Queen in the title, and I have probably already read the ones of interest to me. Scanning through the list of “titles beginning with q” I would a volume by Helene Hanff of 84, Charring Cross Road fame, that I had not yet read. Hanff was a treasure, a throw back to old New York, and I knew that anything she wrote, while not the greatest literary voice, would be charming to read.
Q’s Legacy is part memoir, part behind the scenes of the development of Charring Cross Road. Helene Hanff wanted to study English, and her parents wanted her to go to college. During the depression, college was more than most families could afford, and Helene was fortunate to attend Temple University for one year. During a summer job after this first year, she first discovered the writing of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch at the Philadelphia Public Library. Helene was immediately smitten with Q’s ideology and took it upon herself to become his pupil. It was at this point while she immersed herself in the study of language and grammar that she realized that all she wanted to do was study English and literature and hopefully become a writer herself. Her family needed income so Helene took odd jobs in bookkeeping and typing, but they did not suit her. She wanted a job where she was not beholden to an employer and could keep her own hours and do what she desired. She knew even as she first entered the work force that she wanted to be a writer. By chance she caught on at an entry level position in the theater guild and relocated to New York. Her collection of Q’s book came with her.
Although not successful at first, Hanff was determined to live in her own apartment and not be dependent on anyone. For a few decades she struggled to find publishers for her articles while editing unsuccessful plays for the theater guild. At this point, she struck up a correspondence with the Marks and Co Bookshop in London because she found that most New York book sellers did not have the volumes she desired in stock. This began an epistolary relationship with the bookshop employees that would last over twenty years. She struck up a personal friendship with Frank Doel and his family and sent the shop staff care packages during a postwar era where items like nylon stockings and sugar were still a luxury. Marks and Co of 84, Charring Cross Road sent Helene all the obscure books she wanted, including all of Sir Quiller-Couch’s writings. At this point in her life, Helene had become a successful tv script writer, but by the late 1960s, most of tv had moved to Hollywood, a way of life she was not willing to embrace. Needing another project to pay her bills, Helene thought about her twenty plus years of correspondence with Marks and Co and sent it to her publisher.
Having read both 84, Charring Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, I know how the story ends up. Helene Hanff does not get kicked out of her apartment but rather rises to cult fame as the author of 84, Charring Cross Road. Having a listed number and address, fans would mail her books and call her at all hours of the night. At times she resented the calls and mail, especially during the holiday season, but better to have her fifteen plus minutes of fame than be unable to pay the bills. Charring Cross Road’s popularity allowed her to travel to London multiple times and befriend a large circle of people associated with the book or otherwise. If she were not such an introvert at home in her cozy apartment, I could picture Hanff relocating to Regents Park and holding court there. Once her book became a theatrical sensation in London’s West End, she was just as beloved there as she was in New York, if not more so. There is a plaque located at 84 Charring Cross Road attesting to this.
Helene Hanff never had children of her own. Just like Sir Quiller-Couch, her legacy is in her writing. She was a New York institution who helped edit the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! and saw her own creation make it to Broadway later in her life. While most known for her charming books, Hanff should also be remembered for her tv and play editing skills. These she learned from being self taught while reading the works of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in lieu of attending college. That both their words live on for generations to come in this age of a resurgence of reading the classics is both their lasting legacies. Like Hanff before me I will have to start tracking down her more obscure works because I have now read all her notable ones which now have more than a cult following.
4 stars
Q’s Legacy is part memoir, part behind the scenes of the development of Charring Cross Road. Helene Hanff wanted to study English, and her parents wanted her to go to college. During the depression, college was more than most families could afford, and Helene was fortunate to attend Temple University for one year. During a summer job after this first year, she first discovered the writing of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch at the Philadelphia Public Library. Helene was immediately smitten with Q’s ideology and took it upon herself to become his pupil. It was at this point while she immersed herself in the study of language and grammar that she realized that all she wanted to do was study English and literature and hopefully become a writer herself. Her family needed income so Helene took odd jobs in bookkeeping and typing, but they did not suit her. She wanted a job where she was not beholden to an employer and could keep her own hours and do what she desired. She knew even as she first entered the work force that she wanted to be a writer. By chance she caught on at an entry level position in the theater guild and relocated to New York. Her collection of Q’s book came with her.
Although not successful at first, Hanff was determined to live in her own apartment and not be dependent on anyone. For a few decades she struggled to find publishers for her articles while editing unsuccessful plays for the theater guild. At this point, she struck up a correspondence with the Marks and Co Bookshop in London because she found that most New York book sellers did not have the volumes she desired in stock. This began an epistolary relationship with the bookshop employees that would last over twenty years. She struck up a personal friendship with Frank Doel and his family and sent the shop staff care packages during a postwar era where items like nylon stockings and sugar were still a luxury. Marks and Co of 84, Charring Cross Road sent Helene all the obscure books she wanted, including all of Sir Quiller-Couch’s writings. At this point in her life, Helene had become a successful tv script writer, but by the late 1960s, most of tv had moved to Hollywood, a way of life she was not willing to embrace. Needing another project to pay her bills, Helene thought about her twenty plus years of correspondence with Marks and Co and sent it to her publisher.
Having read both 84, Charring Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, I know how the story ends up. Helene Hanff does not get kicked out of her apartment but rather rises to cult fame as the author of 84, Charring Cross Road. Having a listed number and address, fans would mail her books and call her at all hours of the night. At times she resented the calls and mail, especially during the holiday season, but better to have her fifteen plus minutes of fame than be unable to pay the bills. Charring Cross Road’s popularity allowed her to travel to London multiple times and befriend a large circle of people associated with the book or otherwise. If she were not such an introvert at home in her cozy apartment, I could picture Hanff relocating to Regents Park and holding court there. Once her book became a theatrical sensation in London’s West End, she was just as beloved there as she was in New York, if not more so. There is a plaque located at 84 Charring Cross Road attesting to this.
Helene Hanff never had children of her own. Just like Sir Quiller-Couch, her legacy is in her writing. She was a New York institution who helped edit the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! and saw her own creation make it to Broadway later in her life. While most known for her charming books, Hanff should also be remembered for her tv and play editing skills. These she learned from being self taught while reading the works of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in lieu of attending college. That both their words live on for generations to come in this age of a resurgence of reading the classics is both their lasting legacies. Like Hanff before me I will have to start tracking down her more obscure works because I have now read all her notable ones which now have more than a cult following.
4 stars
December 6, 2019
This book is the perfect companion piece to 84, Charing Cross Road, as it picks up on what happen to Hanaff after the success of her book. It was also really funny in parts like on her exam for a scholarship she had labeled the Pacific Ocean as Africa and then after her eye surgery
It's just a great story about a writer who struggled most of her life then the rewards as she neared old age.
There was, for instance, the beautiful brown-and-white collie who came toward me one day in the park and who, as I stooped to pet him, turned into a brown suitcase in a man's white-cuffed hand. And there was the lovely Saturday afternoon when I was sailing insouciantly down Fifth Avenue and saw ahead of me a large pink banner streaming down the familiar steps of St. Thomas's church. St. Thomas's has wonderful choral concerts and I hoped the banner was advertising one of them, as the crowd at the side of the steps seemed to indicate. The crowd blocked my way and I detoured around it and down to the curb — just as a limousine door opened and a misty white bride walked into me. That's when I saw that the large pink banner had turned into six pink bridesmaids lined up in formation on the church steps.
It's just a great story about a writer who struggled most of her life then the rewards as she neared old age.
February 28, 2015
3.5 stars. A taste of Q's Legacy:
Q brought English literature into my life and my passion for London grew. Sam Pepys's London might be gone, but Leigh Hunt's was still there. I wanted to take the walks he took at night. I wanted to stand on Westminster Bridge and look at the view, because Wordsworth said Earth had not anything to show more fair. But it was all day-dreaming. Between my hand-to-mouth income and my fear of travel, I never really expected to see London. Staring at that ad, I thought it would be a lovely consolation prize to hold in my hands books that actually came from there... And when they came in the mail I couldn't believe them... old, mellow leather-bound books with thick cream-colored pages, but not so opulently fine as to make me feel guilty if I underlined a phrase here (in pencil) or made a margin note there when I felt like it. They didn't have the look of rare or fine books, they looked like the friends I needed them to be...
March 20, 2017
I love Helene Hanff’s books. Despite being the most famous, 84, Charing Cross Road isn’t my favourite (although I enjoyed it). I adored Underfoot in Show Business and this one, both of which are humorous memoirs based on anecdote rather than letters. Hanff is a wonderfully entertaining and sympathetic writer, as well as (unusually) someone I can really relate to. Like her, I aspire to live alone in a small but pretty flat with plenty of time to read in peace. If Underfoot in Show Business dwells in hilarious fashion on Hanff’s twenties, ‘Q’s Legacy’ is about subsequent decades during and after she found sudden success with 84, Charing Cross Road. Thus this later book isn’t quite as light, as it deals with such adventures as cataract surgery. That leaves her physically unable to read for an entire month, which sounds absolutely terrifying. She recounts such things in an amusing yet moving fashion, a balance she has an especial knack for. When reading her books, it’s easy to see why she has so many enthusiastic fans. Her writing makes you wish to be her friend, and indeed speaks to you as if you already are. It has an undeniable and quite distinctive warmth.
October 3, 2025
Such an enjoyable companion to 84, Charing Cross Road!
August 24, 2010
Type: {Impress Your Friends Read: noteable; prize-winner of all around intelligent crowd conversation piece)
Rating:{I’m Lovin’ It: Very Entertaining!}
Why You’re Reading It:
You adore Helene Hanff and wish you could have met her (oh wait, that’s me)
You like intelligent, funny women who were ahead of their time
Glimpses into New York when it was all about writers and the theater are your bag
Interesting, short non-fiction entertains you
You’re smart
What I Thought:
I might always regret that I discovered Helene Hanff after she died. I had a good seventeen years on this Earth with her, and I couldn’t have found her then? Oh how I wish I had. I would have looked her up and visited, or written her a letter. She was the old-school type of writer who actually welcomed that sort of thing.
What a treat that she left behind: Q’s Legacy, her autodidactic story of educating herself through literature after she was only able to complete one year of college because of funding. What an inspiration to read her story as she tells the readers how she struggled through a New York that no longer exists, but catered to scraping writers and the theater industry in a way that we aren’t familiar with anymore. When the circles of artists were smaller and you didn’t have to already be famous to become somebody.
She takes us with her to London as she watches her cult classic 84, Charing Cross Road become the stuff of legends. And back again to New York where the Broadway version flopped, much to her relief…
Being a celebrity for a week in London had been the most fun I’d ever had in my life, and wonderful for the ego – but only because I’d known I was coming home at the end of it, homem to the quiet, orderly, solitary, unglamorous life I was made for. To be forced to live a celebrity’s life at home, even for a little while, had been a nightmarish possibility. It was gone in the morning, like any other nightmare.
Quotes like this and the 20 or so other,s that I have marked with stickies in the library copy of the book I read, are why I find Hanff such a role model. Her work was not about becoming famous. And it was not about being a wife or mother, nor did she go the route of the beatniks, who were coming up in her era. She was somewhere in between these two extremes of the 1950′s, in a world of her own making that would prove to be ahead of her time. I have to admire this woman who would be in her 90′s today, who led a life that resembled more of a man’s life in that period that did enable women to do so. It is incredibly refreshing to read her work.
Perhaps some of you will feel the same way. If you, like me, wish you could catch glimpse of the era when being a writer and playwright in New York was more posh than being a hollywood fashionista… you will love the opportunity that Hanff has given us in Q’s Legacy.
Rating:{I’m Lovin’ It: Very Entertaining!}
Why You’re Reading It:
You adore Helene Hanff and wish you could have met her (oh wait, that’s me)
You like intelligent, funny women who were ahead of their time
Glimpses into New York when it was all about writers and the theater are your bag
Interesting, short non-fiction entertains you
You’re smart
What I Thought:
I might always regret that I discovered Helene Hanff after she died. I had a good seventeen years on this Earth with her, and I couldn’t have found her then? Oh how I wish I had. I would have looked her up and visited, or written her a letter. She was the old-school type of writer who actually welcomed that sort of thing.
What a treat that she left behind: Q’s Legacy, her autodidactic story of educating herself through literature after she was only able to complete one year of college because of funding. What an inspiration to read her story as she tells the readers how she struggled through a New York that no longer exists, but catered to scraping writers and the theater industry in a way that we aren’t familiar with anymore. When the circles of artists were smaller and you didn’t have to already be famous to become somebody.
She takes us with her to London as she watches her cult classic 84, Charing Cross Road become the stuff of legends. And back again to New York where the Broadway version flopped, much to her relief…
Being a celebrity for a week in London had been the most fun I’d ever had in my life, and wonderful for the ego – but only because I’d known I was coming home at the end of it, homem to the quiet, orderly, solitary, unglamorous life I was made for. To be forced to live a celebrity’s life at home, even for a little while, had been a nightmarish possibility. It was gone in the morning, like any other nightmare.
Quotes like this and the 20 or so other,s that I have marked with stickies in the library copy of the book I read, are why I find Hanff such a role model. Her work was not about becoming famous. And it was not about being a wife or mother, nor did she go the route of the beatniks, who were coming up in her era. She was somewhere in between these two extremes of the 1950′s, in a world of her own making that would prove to be ahead of her time. I have to admire this woman who would be in her 90′s today, who led a life that resembled more of a man’s life in that period that did enable women to do so. It is incredibly refreshing to read her work.
Perhaps some of you will feel the same way. If you, like me, wish you could catch glimpse of the era when being a writer and playwright in New York was more posh than being a hollywood fashionista… you will love the opportunity that Hanff has given us in Q’s Legacy.
August 22, 2014
I am curled up on the giant, green easy chair that has turned into my office over the past weeks caught in that moment of bliss that happens when you finish a nearly perfect, five star book. I didn't plan to read the whole book this evening. I planned to watch my show, prepare some stuff for tomorrow, interact with the family.
Helene didn't let me follow through with that plan.
I read 84, Charing Cross Road this past January and fell in love. Like The Grand Sophy, Daddy-Long-Legs, and To Kill a Mockingbird, the words worked their way inside my heart and opened up a whole new realm of experience and recognition. For my 21st birthday this past July, my lovely friend Kris sent me a hard-copy cover of the book in true 84, Charing Cross Road style. It is one of my prize possessions.
I felt hesitant reading something else by Helen Hanff, though. As if a magic spell might be broken, I worried she wouldn't live up to my estimation.
Q's Legacy leaves me nearly speechless. She describes her readers as rare but "fanatic". I am most unashamedly one of those fanatics. This book was so relatable I read it in one sitting! Her love books, her love of England, her quirky, crisp writing style. It connected with me.
Especially her love of England. I find I am not so much homesick for Oxford as passionate. I want to go back. I don't feel nostalgic as much as curious. There are more adventures to be had. Every time she went back culminated in something grander and better. Tearful, yes, but beautiful.
I want to go back.
So three cheers to Helen Hanff who once reminded me of my love for books, and now reminds me of my love for England.
Helene didn't let me follow through with that plan.
I read 84, Charing Cross Road this past January and fell in love. Like The Grand Sophy, Daddy-Long-Legs, and To Kill a Mockingbird, the words worked their way inside my heart and opened up a whole new realm of experience and recognition. For my 21st birthday this past July, my lovely friend Kris sent me a hard-copy cover of the book in true 84, Charing Cross Road style. It is one of my prize possessions.
I felt hesitant reading something else by Helen Hanff, though. As if a magic spell might be broken, I worried she wouldn't live up to my estimation.
Q's Legacy leaves me nearly speechless. She describes her readers as rare but "fanatic". I am most unashamedly one of those fanatics. This book was so relatable I read it in one sitting! Her love books, her love of England, her quirky, crisp writing style. It connected with me.
Especially her love of England. I find I am not so much homesick for Oxford as passionate. I want to go back. I don't feel nostalgic as much as curious. There are more adventures to be had. Every time she went back culminated in something grander and better. Tearful, yes, but beautiful.
I want to go back.
So three cheers to Helen Hanff who once reminded me of my love for books, and now reminds me of my love for England.
May 13, 2024
Now I want to read 84, Charing Cross Road.
The first half of the book was more engaging than the second half. When Hanff started to mention all of those people, I had a hard time keeping them straight. Finally, I decided I didn't need to know all the names (fans, old friends, publishing house employees, people in the acting world ...)
p. 43 I thought this little incident revealed a lot about her character. A fan wanted to give a small dinner party for her. Hanff's thought:
How do you write back and say that, like everybody else, you're too shy to walk into a roomful of strangers and make conversation with them while they stare at you?
(Did she mean 'unlike' everybody else?)
On p 22, Hanff writes a few words about her reading preferences:
I didn't like novels. (I subscribe to Randall Jarrell's definition of a novel as "a prose narrative that has something wrong with it.") .. And having neither literary reputation nor Palace connection, I was in no position to write the kind of book I most loved to read: memoirs, diaries, letters.
The first half of the book was more engaging than the second half. When Hanff started to mention all of those people, I had a hard time keeping them straight. Finally, I decided I didn't need to know all the names (fans, old friends, publishing house employees, people in the acting world ...)
p. 43 I thought this little incident revealed a lot about her character. A fan wanted to give a small dinner party for her. Hanff's thought:
How do you write back and say that, like everybody else, you're too shy to walk into a roomful of strangers and make conversation with them while they stare at you?
(Did she mean 'unlike' everybody else?)
On p 22, Hanff writes a few words about her reading preferences:
I didn't like novels. (I subscribe to Randall Jarrell's definition of a novel as "a prose narrative that has something wrong with it.") .. And having neither literary reputation nor Palace connection, I was in no position to write the kind of book I most loved to read: memoirs, diaries, letters.
November 27, 2025
Of course we all know and love 84, Charing Cross Road, about Hanff’s epistolary friendship with the staff of Marks & Co. Antiquarian Booksellers in London in the 1950s. This gives a bit of background to the writing and publication of that book, responds to its unexpected success, and follows up on a couple of later trips to England for the TV and stage adaptations. Hanff lived in a tiny New York City apartment and worked behind the scenes in theatre and television. Even authoring a cult classic didn’t change the facts of being a creative in one of the world’s most expensive cities: paying the bills between royalty checks was a scramble. The title is a little odd and refers to Hanff’s self-directed education after she had to leave Temple University after a year. When she stumbled on Cambridge professor Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s books of lectures at the library, she decided to make them the basis of her classical education. I most liked the diary from a 1970s trip to London on which she stayed in her UK publisher André Deutsch’s mother’s apartment! This is pleasant and I appreciated Hanff’s humble delight in her unexpected later-life accomplishments, but it does feel rather like a collection of scraps. I also have to wonder to what extent this repeats content from the 84 sequel, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. But if you’ve liked her other books, you may as well read this one, too.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
February 20, 2021
Helene Hanff---she of 84, Charing Cross Road fame---recounts her life pre-84, Charing Cross Road, sharing stories of her other writing endeavors (mostly disappointing) with plays and children's history and magazine articles, as well as post-84, Charing Cross Road, with her visits to London and books about those visits.
April 6, 2022
This book is relaxing and wonderfully easy to read. It's the story of how Helene Hanff first encountered Arthur Quiller-Couch, known to his friends as Q, and how this helped her to educate herself as a writer, and how she became a lover of books and letters. Hanff went to college briefly, but had to leave as she couldn't afford to stay on, and began to eke out a living in theatres, as a writer for television, and as an article-writer. Unfortunately, Hanff struggled to find inspiration for her books, and though her prose style is very fine, she wasn't able to produce enough good books to keep herself comfortably afloat. This story explores her modest success, her love of London, and the ways in which writing the cult classic, "84, Charing Cross Road," changed her life. It's funny how Hanff can walk into a greengrocers in London, and 40 years later, I'm welling up thinking about it. She has a great sense of the importance of place, and writes with ease and charm.
June 18, 2017
I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!!!
For anyone who loved "84 Charing Cross Road," this is how the book, and the subsequent theater productions, came to be. I loved spending a couple of days in my two favorite cities: New York and London, with one of my favorite writers, Helene Hanff.
For anyone who loved "84 Charing Cross Road," this is how the book, and the subsequent theater productions, came to be. I loved spending a couple of days in my two favorite cities: New York and London, with one of my favorite writers, Helene Hanff.
December 6, 2019
This is a great compaion piece to 84, Charing Cross Road. The pick's up with Hannff's life after the book and chronicles her trip to London. I love her writing style, funny fast paced.
This is a bit from the section after her eye surgery.
If you liked 84, Charing Cross Road you really should give this one a try.
This is a bit from the section after her eye surgery.
There was, for instance, the beautiful brown-and-white collie who came toward me one day in the park and who, as I stooped to pet him, turned into a brown suitcase in a man's white-cuffed hand. And there was the lovely Saturday afternoon when I was sailing insouciantly down Fifth Avenue and saw ahead of me a large pink banner streaming down the familiar steps of St. Thomas's church. St. Thomas's has wonderful choral concerts and I hoped the banner was advertising one of them, as the crowd at the side of the steps seemed to indicate. The crowd blocked my way and I detoured around it and down to the curb — just as a limousine door opened and a misty white bride walked into me. That's when I saw that the large pink banner had turned into six pink bridesmaids lined up in formation on the church steps.
If you liked 84, Charing Cross Road you really should give this one a try.
September 27, 2022
Excellent and an often funny account. Her story is a bit of a Cinderella one minus a prince.
After reading more about Q, I was excited to see that he paired up with my beloved Daphne du Maurier for the book Castle Dor.
After reading more about Q, I was excited to see that he paired up with my beloved Daphne du Maurier for the book Castle Dor.
April 6, 2022
Q’s Legacy is another very well-written and engaging memoir by Helene Hanff.
The subtitle is a little misleading, I think. Much of the book isn’t about a “lifelong love affair with books” but about the origin and birth of the book 84 Charing Cross Road and its subsequent colossal impact on Helene’s life. That’s just fine by me, and to be fair, her love of books and her debt to Arthur Quiller-Couch in inspiring and guiding that love is evident throughout.
Helene is engaging and honest throughout, for example about how she keeps writing unviable plays and books until realising after many years that she “can only write about what happens to me.” She’s doing that here, and doing it very well. It’s warm, humane, modest and touching in places; her approach to fans is delightful and I found the stories of 84’s publication and subsequent adaptation for TV and the stage quite fascinating.
In short, if you enjoyed 84, Charing Cross Road, you’ll enjoy this. I liked it very much and can recommend it warmly.
The subtitle is a little misleading, I think. Much of the book isn’t about a “lifelong love affair with books” but about the origin and birth of the book 84 Charing Cross Road and its subsequent colossal impact on Helene’s life. That’s just fine by me, and to be fair, her love of books and her debt to Arthur Quiller-Couch in inspiring and guiding that love is evident throughout.
Helene is engaging and honest throughout, for example about how she keeps writing unviable plays and books until realising after many years that she “can only write about what happens to me.” She’s doing that here, and doing it very well. It’s warm, humane, modest and touching in places; her approach to fans is delightful and I found the stories of 84’s publication and subsequent adaptation for TV and the stage quite fascinating.
In short, if you enjoyed 84, Charing Cross Road, you’ll enjoy this. I liked it very much and can recommend it warmly.
October 12, 2009
Well, I'm glad I pursued this second sequel to "84 Charing Cross Road", but I think this one came up a bit short. Perhaps everyone just so much loved the "voice" of Helene that they kept asking her to write...and she had only one 'great' book in her. This story is again more of the "how I came to write '84'" stuff. There are, of course, a few really great quips and memories that make the book worth reading and, again, I'd love to be one of her friends seeing New York City through her eyes, but sometimes enough is enough.
If all three books -- 84 Charing Cross Road, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, and Q's Legacy -- were in one volume and edited accordingly, it probably would work better than in the present form.
There's just this little, niggling voice inside me that said she wrote this one for the rent money, even though she was quite famous by the time it came out. Is that a reason not to write? Perhaps much great literature was written for the rent money. This one is a bit, just a bit, too transparent on that score.
If all three books -- 84 Charing Cross Road, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, and Q's Legacy -- were in one volume and edited accordingly, it probably would work better than in the present form.
There's just this little, niggling voice inside me that said she wrote this one for the rent money, even though she was quite famous by the time it came out. Is that a reason not to write? Perhaps much great literature was written for the rent money. This one is a bit, just a bit, too transparent on that score.
January 30, 2012
This starts out as an interesting book about the author's love of reading and books, her start as a struggling writer in New York City, and how she came to write the great 84, Charing Cross Road. But it deteriorates in the second half into a diary of her second trip to England, and I wonder if she was just encouraged to write another book that fans of 84 and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street would buy, even thought the book turns out to be quite a hodgepodge. Kind of sad, because she is a good and witty writer. "Q" is Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, a great Cambridge lit professor, whose books inspired Hanff to read many wonderful books and to write well. But the connection to him throughout the book is a bit tentative, and the closing reference to him seems contrived.
August 26, 2015
Thorougly enjoyed this. Helene continues her story, this time starting with her encounter with Arthur Quiller Couch "Q" lecture series. She read them to continue her education and through them developed a love for Leigh Hunt, Milton and lots more. She wanted to read and own these books which is how she came to write to Marks &Co of 84 Charing Cross Road. This installment follows her career through the 70s and 80s when her book becomes a tv series and then a West End play and finally a Broadway play. This, for her, is Q's Legacy; he started her reading many of the works which shaped her encounter with Marks & Co which lead to her books and ultimately to her longed for trips to London. A great read about an amazing lady.
October 15, 2020
It has been an absolute pleasure to read more Helene Hanff this year. She feels like an old pal. She’s witty and quirky and so interesting, and takes things as they come in such an open-handed way. Her books are a breath of fresh air. If you’re looking to read her works, I recommend first reading 84, Charing Cross Rd, then Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, and finishing with Q’s Legacy.
May 9, 2013
I loved all of Hanff's other books but I found this one to be a rather muddled narrative about her second trip to London. I had hoped this book would focus more on the books she loved that were Q's Legacy to her.
June 21, 2021
This seemed less like what’s billed on the cover and more like a mishmash of memoir-related items that wouldn’t fit into other books. There wasn’t enough coherence throughout to pull me through it. A little bit of a slog.
May 23, 2009
Why didn't Helene Haniff write more books?
May 17, 2025
It was a bit up and down but mostly I enjoyed this memoir of Hanff's about her writing life. She takes us from young adult when she discovers Sir. Arthur Quiller-Couch to her experiences with old books and Marks & Co, through to the NY opening of the 84 Charing Cross play in 1982. Sometimes it got a little slow as she made her way through London and meeting loads of people associated with 84 and it's publication. But, mostly it was charming to read her experiences and wonder at becoming a successful writing in the 2nd half of her life. One of my favorite quotes from the book:
"What fortune teller would ever have the nerve to predict that the best years of my life would turn out to be my old age?"
Here's hoping that for the rest of us.
"What fortune teller would ever have the nerve to predict that the best years of my life would turn out to be my old age?"
Here's hoping that for the rest of us.
December 19, 2025
This is a book about becoming a writer that anyone could enjoy, especially those who have read 84 Charing Cross Road, love books, and love England. Lucky for me, I'm all three.
November 11, 2017
I've read this right on the heels of 84, Charing Cross Road and am absolutely delighted with the both of them! What a sweet, endearing memoir full of hilarious anecdotes and witty life observances. I'd never heard of this author or her books before receiving these two this fall but I know I'll be recommending her now. I think the thing I love about Hanff the most is her desire to educate herself. She didn't need college professors to spoon feed her. She read to learn and to learn what to read. I, too, am a self-educated writer. Hanff couldn't afford to go to college. I, though I can afford it, choose not to. I find it very satisfying to explore the world on my own schedule and in my own way.
I loved reading about her time spent exploring England 45-55 years ago---imagining the places I've been without some of the things that are now there---and with things that are no longer there. For instance, she described Jane Austen's gravesite in great detail but was struck by the fact that it didn't mention her as a renowned authoress. There is now a gorgeous plaque on the wall near her gravestone that discusses her writing success and the lasting impact she's made on the world.
She also described Chawton Cottage with several details that are no longer there on display, as far as I know, such as the letter from Jane to Edward announcing their father's death, as well as a selection of period-correct dresses in Jane's room. The first time I visited Chawton Cottage, there was only the blue Anne Hathaway dress on display and last year there were none. They no longer, as far as I know, show off the "creaking door"---it's always propped open when I've come; and Jane's nephew, Jeremy Knight, greets visitors, rather than a caretaker. (Knight would have been up the road residing at Chawton Manor with his young family when Hanff visited. Now the Knights no longer inhabit the home and it, too, is open to the public.)
Another line regarding rock candy at Brighton struck me funny when she said, "it's as unique to Brighton as salt-water taffy is to Atlantic City." At the time, that statement was fact. Now it is a false analogy as rock candy sticks can be found in every candy store from York to Bath---just like salt-water taffy is so common I can grab a bag for $3 at any Walmart.
I loved these lines at the end---they remind me of the importance of recording my life in journals: "If I live to be very old, all my memories of the glory days will grow vague and confused, till I won't be certain any of it really happened. But the books will be there, on my shelves and in my head---the one enduring reality I can be certain of till the day I die."
This book, like 84 Charing Cross Road, is dear to me. Why can't these types be on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die List?
I may hold on to this awhile---I may pass it on. Not sure yet. I sure do appreciate having the opportunity to read it!
I loved reading about her time spent exploring England 45-55 years ago---imagining the places I've been without some of the things that are now there---and with things that are no longer there. For instance, she described Jane Austen's gravesite in great detail but was struck by the fact that it didn't mention her as a renowned authoress. There is now a gorgeous plaque on the wall near her gravestone that discusses her writing success and the lasting impact she's made on the world.
She also described Chawton Cottage with several details that are no longer there on display, as far as I know, such as the letter from Jane to Edward announcing their father's death, as well as a selection of period-correct dresses in Jane's room. The first time I visited Chawton Cottage, there was only the blue Anne Hathaway dress on display and last year there were none. They no longer, as far as I know, show off the "creaking door"---it's always propped open when I've come; and Jane's nephew, Jeremy Knight, greets visitors, rather than a caretaker. (Knight would have been up the road residing at Chawton Manor with his young family when Hanff visited. Now the Knights no longer inhabit the home and it, too, is open to the public.)
Another line regarding rock candy at Brighton struck me funny when she said, "it's as unique to Brighton as salt-water taffy is to Atlantic City." At the time, that statement was fact. Now it is a false analogy as rock candy sticks can be found in every candy store from York to Bath---just like salt-water taffy is so common I can grab a bag for $3 at any Walmart.
I loved these lines at the end---they remind me of the importance of recording my life in journals: "If I live to be very old, all my memories of the glory days will grow vague and confused, till I won't be certain any of it really happened. But the books will be there, on my shelves and in my head---the one enduring reality I can be certain of till the day I die."
This book, like 84 Charing Cross Road, is dear to me. Why can't these types be on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die List?
I may hold on to this awhile---I may pass it on. Not sure yet. I sure do appreciate having the opportunity to read it!
March 30, 2022
3.5-3.75*
A little gem from the free little library near me.
I've never seen nor read 84 Charing Cross Rd but I'll need to remedy that!
What's to love:
*It's a love letter to a bygone era that wasn't so long ago and all of the frustrations and joys of anticipation (waiting months or weeks for replies to the most basic queries). And the sweet reward of finding a resource that resonates with you like Marks and Co. or Quiller-Couch. I'm not one for nostalgia, but it really did make me long for a simpler, more innocent time when things moved more slowly.
**It really gives you a sense what life was like from the 30s-80s.
*It's a portrait of a starving artist just scraping to get by for most of her life despite a huge fandom.
*It's a tribute to emotional labor- both the joys and the suffering. What do I mean when she had no children or husband? Her sense of obligation to reply to her fans, to visit them. On the one hand it was validation for her, but on the other hand it impoverished her. I'm pretty sure she wasn't joking with her anecdote about earning 11 cents per book and spending 22 cents on a thank you note to every reader who wrote her.
What's to be disappointed in...
*Not enough Q between the beginning and the end. (but this is a minor quibble and probably a very good thing because it might've been boring and now my appetite for Q is whet, I'm going to check out some of his work)
*May be disjointed for some, but everything does tie together in the end.
*All the names at the end seem to come out of left field because she doesn't "name drop" in the first part:
- people she met at the 2 premieres of the play and various activities
- fans she met or didn't...
- and some references to various historical figures/British royalty while she was visiting the various sites. I had to pick and choose which ones to focus on, look up. If you've never heard of Prinny, for ex., it can be a bit maddening, but unlike Helene, i have Google and YouTube to tell me he was the Prince Regent... Bonus I got to see Rock Candy being made in a Pathé video from the 50s! But will i commit these things to my memory the same way she did? I doubt it.
A little gem from the free little library near me.
I've never seen nor read 84 Charing Cross Rd but I'll need to remedy that!
What's to love:
*It's a love letter to a bygone era that wasn't so long ago and all of the frustrations and joys of anticipation (waiting months or weeks for replies to the most basic queries). And the sweet reward of finding a resource that resonates with you like Marks and Co. or Quiller-Couch. I'm not one for nostalgia, but it really did make me long for a simpler, more innocent time when things moved more slowly.
**It really gives you a sense what life was like from the 30s-80s.
*It's a portrait of a starving artist just scraping to get by for most of her life despite a huge fandom.
*It's a tribute to emotional labor- both the joys and the suffering. What do I mean when she had no children or husband? Her sense of obligation to reply to her fans, to visit them. On the one hand it was validation for her, but on the other hand it impoverished her. I'm pretty sure she wasn't joking with her anecdote about earning 11 cents per book and spending 22 cents on a thank you note to every reader who wrote her.
What's to be disappointed in...
*Not enough Q between the beginning and the end. (but this is a minor quibble and probably a very good thing because it might've been boring and now my appetite for Q is whet, I'm going to check out some of his work)
*May be disjointed for some, but everything does tie together in the end.
*All the names at the end seem to come out of left field because she doesn't "name drop" in the first part:
- people she met at the 2 premieres of the play and various activities
- fans she met or didn't...
- and some references to various historical figures/British royalty while she was visiting the various sites. I had to pick and choose which ones to focus on, look up. If you've never heard of Prinny, for ex., it can be a bit maddening, but unlike Helene, i have Google and YouTube to tell me he was the Prince Regent... Bonus I got to see Rock Candy being made in a Pathé video from the 50s! But will i commit these things to my memory the same way she did? I doubt it.
December 29, 2021
After reading "84, Charing Cross Road," I found myself a copy of the Helene Hanff Omnibus, and have been carrying it around with me, reading all the books contained therein and telling everyone about it (mostly my family, as I've read it over our Christmas break). I loved reading about her setting out to obtain a Cambridge education for herself, by reading Arthur Quiller-Couch's books of his lectures, and the ones he referenced therein, like Walton's "The Compleat Angler," Newman's "The Idea of a University" and Milton's "Paradise Lost." It took her a long time to get through Q's books, as she worked on reading all the books he assumed those attending his lectures had read. She was the picture of a life-long learner. Upon hearing of his death, she said in the book, "I felt suddenly lost with Q gone. Till I looked at the books of his lectures arranged on the shelf and thought, 'He's not gone, you nut, you have him in the house!...Then I set out to buy the books he'd taught me to love." That was how her relationship with Marks & Co, the used booksellers in London, began. She got to go back to London to see 84 turned into a television show. She met with old friends, and made new ones with fans who'd written to her, and had a whole new set of lovely experiences in the UK, including visiting Q's rooms at Jesus College. If you haven't read 84, PLEASE do. If you have read it and enjoyed it, PLEASE read Helene's other books. You won't be sorry.
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