Showing results by author "Mortimer" in All Categories

Rumpole defends a Pakistani doctor accused of molesting a female patient. Meanwhile his colleague Phyllida suspects her husband, Erskine-Brown, of philandering. To complicate these matters even more, Rumpole is sidetracked by the romantic advances of a middle-aged ex-client.

Throughout John Mortimer's career, he established profound friendships with people accused of various crimes. He also indulged his passion for writing, penning Paradise Postponed and a series of stories about Rumpole, for whom he was often mistaken. With wit, wisdom and tenderness, he has written the story of his life.

Rumpole defends Charles Hearthstoke against charges of keeping bawdy houses, in the form of his chain of massage parlors. The case has become quite a scandal since many customers were prominent members of the community and, to Rumpole's astonishment, paid with credit cards. Guthrie Featherstone, who sought a massage for an injury, now thinks that may be identified as one of the patrons, and Rumpole cunningly arranges for him to preside at Hearthstoke's trial.

If you could travel back in time, the period from 1660 to 1700 would make one of the most exciting destinations in history. It's the age of Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London, bawdy comedy and the libertine court of Charles II, Christopher Wren in architecture, Henry Purcell in music and Isaac Newton in science. In The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain, Ian Mortimer answers the crucial questions that a prospective traveller to 17th-century Britain would ask.

In October of 1910, only four years before the outbreak of World War I, nobody knew whether planes, dirigibles, or balloons would prevail. Within a period of 17 days, this question was on prime display, as the dirigible America tried to cross the Atlantic; huge crowds gathered at horse-racing tracks to watch airplanes race around overhead; and ballooning teams from around the world took off from St. Louis in pursuit of the Bennett International Balloon Cup, given to the balloon that traveled the farthest.

Henry IV is not famous except for the plays that bear his name: He is not even a "much-maligned" king. He is normally overshadowed by his far more famous son, Henry V, despite his many achievements. Shakespeare is partly to blame for Henry's diminution and his son's exaggerated stature but not completely; we just don't know what to make of a man who took the throne from the rightful king.

All eighteen-year-old Carter wants is to distance himself from his daunting family legacy and lead a normal life. Unfortunately that’s hard to do when your mom is half alien and your uncle is an interplanetary war hero (or more likely a war criminal). Normalcy gets even harder for Carter when his parents are kidnapped to the mystical planet Venus, and he must reluctantly join his formidable uncle to save them. Carter finds out all too quickly that time is short, dragons tend to complicate things, and no one is truly what they seem.

Following the best-selling Summer of a Dormouse, Sir John Mortimer - playwright, novelist, octogenarian, and erstwhile QC - offers up more lessons in living and growing old disgracefully. What would we like to leave to our descendants? Not a third-rate painting or our PEPS, according to Sir John, but a love of Shakespeare, a taste for alcohol, the ability to defeat boredom, the importance of never locking the lavatory door, and so on.

It’s high summer when Molly Pargeter drags her amiably bickering family to a rented Tuscan villa for the holidays. Molly is sure that the house is the perfect setting for their three-week getaway, but soon she becomes fascinated by the lives of the absent owners and things start to go horribly wrong.

King Henry IV survived at least eight plots to dethrone or kill him in the first six years of his reign. However, he had not always been so unpopular. In his youth he had been a great chivalric champion and crusader. In 1399, at the age of 32, he was greeted as the saviour of the realm when he ousted from power the tyrannical King Richard II. But Henry had to contend with men who supported him only as long as they could control him; when they failed, they plotted to kill him. Adversaries also tried to take advantage of his questionable right to the crown. 

Our Horace Rumpole, the most traditional of traditionalists, defends a hippie-like schoolteacher on a drugs charge. Quite unexpectedly, he finds himself attracted to her and to her unusual lifestyle.

Rumpole takes on a divorce case. He represents a Mrs. Thripp, who accuses her husband of unbearable conduct since he has not spoken to her for at least three years and communicates with her in their home only via written notes. But at home, Rumpole finds his wife, Hilda, in a horrid temper, since their son, Nick, has moved to Florida. When his client telephones him at home, Hilda eavesdrops on Rumpole’s conversation and thinks that Rumpole is now in the throes of an affair. Will Rumpole now have to find a divorce lawyer for himself?

Longlisted for the Booker Prize Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 'Original, memorable, shimmering' - Sarah Moss 'Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and...

Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, and Joan Sims go beyond Round the Horne in this fabulous vintage comedy show A sparkling sequel to the legendary Round the Horne, Stop Messing About! continued the comedy tradition, reuniting Kenneth Williams with both his former foil Hugh Paddick and his Carry On...

Edward’s life is one of the most extraordinary in all English history. He ordered his uncle to be beheaded, he usurped his father’s throne and he started a war which lasted for more than a hundred years. He took the crown when it was at its lowest point and raised it to new heights, presenting himself as a new King Arthur, victorious across Europe. He was the architect of many English icons - from parliamentary rule to the adoption of English as the official language and even the building of a great clock tower at Westminster. 

Horace Rumpole, the comic, courageous, and corpulent “great defender of muddled and sinful humanity”, is joined by a winning cast of villains and victims in this collection of six tales in which wry humor and sparkling wit deftly send up the British legal system. In Rumpole and the Angel of Death, our hero achieves new, resounding triumphs over the forces of prejudice and mean-mindedness.

In a contest of change, which century from the past millennium would come up trumps? Imagine the Black Death took on the female vote in a pub brawl, or the Industrial Revolution faced the Internet in a medieval joust - whose side would you be on? In this hugely entertaining book, celebrated historian Ian Mortimer takes us on a whirlwind tour of Western history, pitting one century against another in his quest to measure change.

In this collection of stories, the beloved barrister must fend off the advances of a mysterious young woman, face the Disciplinary Committee of the Bar Council, and take on a group of devil worshippers...

Timothy West takes on the role of Rumpole in this collection of cracking court cases, including Rumpole and the Teenage Werewolf, Rumpole and the Right to Privacy, Truth Makes All Things Plain, and The Past Catches Up with Us All....

'Rumpole and the Way Through the Woods': Rumpole makes friends with a dog named Sir Lancelot and finds himself defending a hunt saboteur who claims to be guilty of murder. 'Rumpole for the Prosecution': Rumpole’s personal commandment is ‘Thou Shalt Not Prosecute’ - but he breaks this rule to take on a private prosecution brought by a dead girl’s father. However, an obscure literary reference and a piece of evidence that doesn’t fit bring his defender’s instincts to the fore....