In 1970, elderly American author Helene Hanff takes her first trip to London, England. Arriving in the city, Helene visits a dusty and abandoned shop at 84 Charing Cross Road. She recalls her life in New York City when, on 5 October 1949, she was unable to buy inexpensive old books by British authors at a used bookstore. After seeing an advertisement in the Saturday Review of Literature, she composes a letter to Marks & Co., a London antiquarian bookseller, to inquire about a selection of affordable books that she desires. In London, Marks & Co.'s proprietor, Frank Doel, replies that his store is sending Helene two-thirds of the books on her list and promises to track down the remaining third, which includes an old English Protestant Bible. Helene leaves her apartment in a hurry when she discovers that her books from England have been delivered. She is so excited by the package that she runs back inside and composes a "Thank You" letter to Marks & Co. Later, she asks her British friend Brian to convert the English currency on the Marks & Co. invoice and is ecstatic to learn that she owes a little more than $5. When Frank acquires the rest of Helene's books, including the Bible, he mails them to her. Although Helene is thrilled to receive the second package, she writes a letter to Frank expressing her anger at how the Protestants have mangled the Bible's original, beautiful prose. She also asks if Marks & Co. has a copy of Walter Savage Landor's Imaginary Conversations that includes the Greek dialogues. Luckily, Marks & Co. has that very edition in their store. Later, Helene is distraught to hear that London is still rationing food to its citizens long after World War II has ended. Brian encourages her to send inexpensive, yet plentiful, food packages from Denmark to Marks & Co. for Christmas. When Helene's food package arrives in London, Frank portions out the contents to himself and his employees. During the following Lent, Cecily Farr, Frank's secretary, slips a personal note to Helene into her next shipment without Frank's knowledge. Cecily writes that everyone in the store is curious about Helene's personal life and would like a photograph so they can put a face to her letters. Helene responds that she is just a poor, working class woman with unusual literary tastes and that she fantasizes about the day she can eventually visit London. When Frank receives a new collection of books, he sets aside a first edition of John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University for Helene. However, after receiving Newman's book, Helene sends Frank a scolding letter because it came wrapped in pages torn from another book. Frank apologizes, but explains that the torn pages came from a worthless, damaged book. For Brian's birthday, Helene bakes a Yorkshire pudding for Brian, his girlfriend Kay, and their friend Maxine Bellamy. The next day, Helene receives a phone call announcing that she is being considered for a well-paying job writing scripts for the television series The Adventures of Ellery Queen. Cecily and two other Marks & Co. employees, Megan Wells and Bill Humphries, write to Helene, thanking her for the food packages from Denmark that she has had sent to the store. At a countryside estate, Frank acquires an old book of Elizabethan lyricists, which fulfills a request Helene previously made for romantic poetry. While on a trip to London, Maxine visits the Marks & Co. store, which she describes in great detail to Helene in a letter. However, Frank and his secretary are out to lunch during the visit, so Maxine never gets a chance to introduce herself. While babysitting for her friends Ed and Ginny, Helene soothes the restless baby by reading passages from Newman's Idea of a University. For Christmas, Frank and the Marks & Co. employees send Helene a fancy linen tablecloth as a gift while Frank's wife, Nora, sends photographs of herself, Frank, and their children. George Martin, an elderly Marks & Co. employee, falls ill, so Frank visits him in the hospital and reads him Helene's latest letter. When Maxine takes another trip to London, Helene instructs her to give Frank a gift of nylon stockings to give to Nora and his daughters. When Frank is out at lunch again, Maxine slips the nylons onto his desk unnoticed. When Frank writes to thank Helene, he reports that George has passed away. Although Helene has made enough money from writing for Ellery Queen to afford a trip to London, her plans are derailed when she is forced to undergo expensive dental surgery. While watching Queen Elizabeth's coronation on television, Frank serves ham sandwiches made from Helene's food packages to his friends. Later, Frank intently watches an American woman at the store buying a copy of George Orwell essays, but when she says she is from Delaware, he stops himself from speaking to her. One day, Helene is evicted from her one-room apartment due to renovations, so she rents a larger, fancier apartment in a high rise. A few years later, after selling a story to Harper's magazine, Helene gets a job writing an autobiographical book. She is then arrested after yelling at a police officer during a student sit-in at Columbia University. After returning home and watching the demonstrations on television, Helene reads a letter informing her that Frank passed away on 22 Dec 1969 due to peritonitis following a burst appendix. Days later, on impulse, Helene calls a travel agent and arranges for a trip to London. Visiting the now-closed Marks & Co., Helene says to the empty store, "Here I am, Frankie. I finally made it."