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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Cecily imagine Helene to look like?

2. What term does Helene hope doesn't mean the same thing in England as it does in America?

3. What does Marks & Co. apologize to Helene for in the November 26, 1949 letter?

4. Where did Helene's friend Brian go to get a money order to send to London?

5. What part of the first books that Helene receives from Marks & co. is she afraid to handle?

Short Essay Questions

1. What news about Cecily does Nora share with Helene?

2. How does Helene describe herself in her letter to Cecily?

3. What does Helene mean when she says, "From where I sit, London's a lot closer than 17th Street"?

4. Why is Frank's passion for old books comforting to Helene?

5. What is written in the first letter Helene receives from Marks & Co. bookstore?

6. What prompts Frank's wife Nora to write Helene for the first time?

7. What does Helene apologize to the London booksellers for on behalf of America?

8. Where does Helene get her books during the long silence from Mark & Co at the beginning of 1950?

9. Why does Helene have to stall her travel plans to England in 1953?

10. Why does Nora wish she and Frank owned their own bookshop?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Are Frank and Helene opposites or just two sides of the same coin? Explain your answer using specific events in the book to compare/contrast Frank and Helene.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the unspoken stories that lie beneath the surface of the letters, which encompass so many people over so many years.

Essay Topic 3

Helene concludes that she goes through life "watching the English language being raped before me face." What does she mean by this and why does she use a literary reference to Edward Arlington Robinson?

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This section contains 766 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample