14 East 95th St.

New York City

I'm sending it c/o you, FPD, whoever you are.

December 8, 1949

Savage Landor arrived safely and promptly fell open to a Roman dialogue where two cities had just been destroyed by war and everybody was being crucified and begging passing Roman soldiers to run them through and end the agony. It'll be a relief to turn to Aesop and Rhodope where all you have to worry about is a famine. I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to "I hate to read new books," and I hollered "comrade!" to whoever owned it before me.

(It feels witless to keep writing "Gentlemen" when the same solitary soul is obviously taking care of everything for me.)

Helene Hanff

I enclose a dollar which Brian (British boy friend of Kay upstairs) says will cover the 8/11 I owe you, you forgot to translate.

Noel.

Now then. Brian told me you are all rationed to 2 ounces of meat per family per week and one egg per person per month and I am simply appalled. He has a catalogue from a British firm here which flies food from Denmark to his mother, so I am sending a small Christmas present to Marks & Co. I hope there will be enough to go round, he says the Charing Cross Road bookshops are "all quite small."