Forever Rumpole: The Best of the Rumpole Stories

John Mortimer—novelist, playwright, memoirist, and the author of more than eighty Rumpole short stories—will never be forgotten. While still a practicing barrister, Mortimer took up the pen, and the rest is literary history. His stories featuring the cigar-chomping, cheap-wine-tippling Rumpole and his wife, Hilda (aka "She Who Must Be Obeyed"), have justly earned their place in the pantheon of mystery fiction legends, becoming the basis for the very successful television series Rumpole of the Bailey. Bringing fourteen of Rumpole's most entertaining adventures (seven of which were collected in The Best of Rumpole) together with a fragment of a new story, Forever Rumpole proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Rumpole is never less than delightful.

John Mortimer was the author of fourteen other Rumpole books, many of which formed the basis for the PBS-TV series Rumpole of the Bailey. The first book featuring his most famous character, Horace Rumpole, was published by Penguin in 1980. His work also includes many novels and plays and three acclaimed volumes of autobiography. A former barrister, Mortimer, who was knighted in 1998, lived in Oxfordshire, England. He died in January of 2009.

Ann Mallalieu was the first woman president of the Cambridge Union. She has practiced at the Criminal Bar since 1970 and became a Queen’s Counsel in 1988. After becoming a Labour Life Peer, she was elected Peer of the Year by parliamentarians in 2004 and in the same year was named Peer of the Year by the Spectator. She lives near John Mortimer’s old house in the Chilterns.