Helene Hanff, as a writer, is no Jane Austen or George Eliot. She is at her finest when writing about her personal experiences, which she describes as "I was there" novels. And her six volumes constitute a nearly continuous autobiography. It begins with Youth in the Ghetto, which covers Hanff's childhood in Galicia before and during World War I; it continues with Love in a Cold Climate (1944), about her life in prewar Paris; and ends with The Blessing of Laughter (1972), about her years as a successful author in New York. Hanff wrote two other books that are not strictly speaking autobiographical but which deal with periods in her life: The House on Fortune Street concerns itself with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath; while The Lost Childhood deals with her early years in America. She also published several collections of short stories, one book of poems, and one novel. All of them show the influence of Chekhov and his school. But whereas many people think that only writers can be realists, Hanff was also a realist novelist. She preferred to call herself a "documentarist." This doesn't mean that she reports facts without interpretation, but rather that she presents her characters' views on events and allows readers to make their own judgments about what has happened.