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Book description

Forever Rumpole - a hilarious new selection of the very best Rumpole stories by John Mortimer

Horace Rumpole lives alongside Mr Pickwick and Bertie Wooster as one of the immortal comic characters in English fiction. With his curmudgeonly wit, his literary allusions, his disdain for personal ambition and his lack of pomposity, he has, in the words of the Daily Telegraph, 'ascended to the pantheon of literary immortals'.

Forever Rumpole contains seven stories originally chosen by the author himself as his favourites, together with a further seven from the later period and the opening chapters of a Rumpole novel that Sir John was working on when he died in 2009. The book also includes a fascinating introduction by Ann Mallalieu, fellow lawyer and for many years Sir John's colleague in practice.

'Rumpole, like Jeeves and Sherlock Holmes, is immortal' P. D James, Mail on Sunday

'I thank heaven for small mercies. The first of these is Rumpole' Clive James, Observer

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 was a barrister, playwright and novelist. His trilogy about the rise of an ambitious Tory MP, Leslie Titmuss - Paradise Postponed, Titmuss Regained and The Sound of Trumpets - has recently been reissued in Penguin Classics and his play A Voyage Round My Father was recently successfully revived at the Donmar Theatre with Sir Derek Jacobi in the leading role. He published four Rumpole novels and twelve books of short stories, from which this selection has been made. Sir John died in January 2009. Ann Mallalieu has practised at the Criminal Bar since 1970, and worked frequently with John Mortimer. After becoming a Labour Life Peer, she was voted Peer of the Year by parliamentarians in 2004.