The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street / Helene Hanff
Avon Books, 1976, c1973.
137 p.

This charming little travelogue by the author of 84 Charing Cross Road is a good followup for anyone who loved that book and wants to hear more from Helene Hanff.

It's the (edited) diary of her long postponed trip to London, to experience all the sights she knows from her reading and her love of England. It's therefore a little more reportage and a little less polished than her first big hit.

By the time she got to London, her bookshop had closed, and Frank had already died, but his family welcomed her. She viewed the sights in a rather unorthodox way, preferring to wander the little streets on her own at times, just to get a sense of the city.

But she also met tons of people and went to so many dinners! I don't think I'd want to spend so much of my time on vacation eating with virtual strangers -- but as she says, every meal she doesn't have to pay for means another day in London ;)

Along with the family of her original bookseller, she meets up with a few American acquaintances, and with fans like an active older Colonel who meets her at the airport and drives her to Stratford, among other places. She is also introduced, via friends, to a scholar identified only by initial, who takes her around the "real London" to places from books and the past, not tourist sites. This seems to be the highlight that makes her London trip really worthwhile.

It's quite 70s -- she wears a lot of pantsuits and men comment that they like a woman in skirts, she defers to men's opinions quite often, and the travel arrangements are clearly low tech. But the overall charm and enjoyment, added to the realistic sense of exhaustion and disappointment at times, made this an engaging read. She has some throwaway lines -- can be flippant -- and is clearly an American in England -- but there is a sense of appreciation and literary identification with London that will appeal to any bookish reader.