Book description
The First Rumpole Omnibus - a classic collection of John
Mortimer's iconic character
'One of the great comic creations of modern times' Evening Standard
'Rumpole, like Jeeves and Sherlock Holmes, is immortal' P. D. James,
Mail on Sunday
Who rose to enduring fame on Blood and Typewriters, told the
pregnant Portia of the Chambers it would come out in the end, advised
Guthrie Featherstone, Q. C. to adopt a more judicial attitude,
returned in the tender gloaming of each evening - via Pommeroy's and a
glass of Chateau Fleet Street - to She Who Must Be Obeyed? The answer
is Horace Rumpole whose legal triumphs, plundering sorties into the
'Oxford Book of English Verse' and less-than-salubrious hat are
celebrated here in this first omnibus edition which includes 'Rumpole
of the Bailey', 'The Trials of Rumpole' and 'Rumpole's Return'.
John Mortimer's hilarious Rumpole, which fans of Sherlock
Holmes and P. G. Wodehouse will love, sees the magician of the Old
Bailey at his unpredictable and brilliant best.
Sir John Mortimer was a barrister, playwright and novelist. His
fictional trilogy about the inexorable rise of an ambitious Tory MP in
the Thatcher years (Paradise Postponed, Titmuss Regained and
The Sound of Trumpets) has recently been republished in
Penguin Classics, together with Clinging to the Wreckage and
his play A Voyage round My Father. His most famous creation was
the barrister Horace Rumpole, who featured in four novels and around
eighty short stories. His books in Penguin include: The Anti-social
Behaviour of Horace Rumpole; The Collected Stories of Rumpole; The
First Rumpole Omnibus; Rumpole and the Angel of Death; Rumpole and
the Penge Bungalow Murders; Rumpole and the Primrose Path; Rumpole
and the Reign of Terror; Rumpole and the Younger Generation; Rumpole
at Christmas; Rumpole Rests His Case; The Second Rumpole Omnibus;
Forever Rumpole; In Other Words; Quite Honestly and Summer's Lease.
John Mortimer is a novelist, playwright and former practising
barrister. Among his many publications are several volumes of Rumpole
stories and a trilogy of political novels (Paradise Postponed, Titmuss
Regained and The Sound of Trumpets) featuring Leslie Titmuss - a
character as brilliant as Rumpole. John Mortimer received a knighthood
for his services to the arts in 1998. He lives near Henley-on-Thames.
