helene hanff the duchess of bloomsbury street

ĭoel loved classical music and was, with his brother, a keen supporter of Tottenham Hotspur F.C. Mark Cohen would describe him as the shop's 'anchor man'. Character ĭoel travelled the country and was well regarded wherever he went. In 1947 Doel married Nora Morrison and a second daughter, Mary, was born in 1948.ĭoel served during the Second World War in the Middle East as a Private in the RAOC. In 1936 he married Mary Price, and their daughter, Sheila, was born in 1939. On leaving school, Doel started his first, and only, job with Marks & Co, an antiquarian bookshop, located at 84 Charing Cross Road, London.Īlways known as 'young Frank', he learnt the trade from his employers Ben Marks and Mark Cohen.

He was born in Wallasey, Cheshire, and moved from there to Harringay, London, when he was eight years old.įrom 1919 to 1924, Doel was educated at Hornsey County Grammar School, a co-educational school also attended by his elder brother. The shop where he worked was at 84 Charing Cross Road, the title of a bestselling 1970 book written by Hanff which became a cult classic, a 1981 stage play, and a 1987 film starring Anthony Hopkins as Doel and Anne Bancroft as Hanff. ( February 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)įrank Percy Doel (14 July 1908 – 22 December 1968) was a British antiquarian bookseller for Marks & Co in London who achieved posthumous fame as the recipient of a series of humorous letters from American author Helene Hanff, to which he scrupulously and, at first, very formally replied. Unreliable citations may be challenged or deleted. Please help this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable.

Helene hanff the duchess of bloomsbury street