It is an epistolary memoir composed of letters from the twenty-year correspondence between the author and Frank Doel, chief buyer for Marks & Co antiquarian booksellers, located at the eponymous address in London.

Their letters included discussions about topics as diverse as the sermons of John Donne, how to make Yorkshire Pudding, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the coronation of Elizabeth II.

Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.

In 1981, James Roose-Evans adapted it for the stage and it was first produced at the Salisbury Playhouse with a cast headed by Rosemary Leach as Hanff and David Swift as Doel.

[2] After fifteen previews, the Broadway production opened to mixed reviews[3] on 7 December 1982 at the Nederlander Theatre with Ellen Burstyn and Joseph Maher.

The dramatis personae were expanded to include Hanff's Manhattan friends, the bookshop staff, and Doel's wife Nora, played by Judi Dench.