'Rumpole, like Jeeves and Sherlock Holmes, is immortal' P. D. James Horace Rumpole - dishevelled barrister at law, drinker of claret and smoker of cigars, inveterate quoter of Wordsworth and eternal defender of the underdog - is one of the greatest English comic characters ever created. This is the original volume of Rumpole stories, introducing us to the legal triumphs that first made the Old Bailey Hack's name, along with a host of choice villains, frequent forays to Pommeroy's wine bar and, of course, his formidable, magisterial wife Hilda, She Who Must Be Obeyed. 'I thank heaven for small mercies. The first of these is Rumpole' Clive James 'A fruity, foxy masterpiece, defender of our wilting faith in mankind' Sunday Times

The Anti-social Behaviour of Horace Rumpole - a delightful novel starring John Mortimer's iconic character 'One of the great comic creations of modern times' Evening Standard ASBOs may be the pride and joy of New Labour, but they don't cut much ice with Horace Rumpole - he takes the old-fashioned view that if anyone is going to be threatened with a restriction of their liberty then some form of legal proceeding ought to be gone through first. Not that Hilda agrees, of course, but she's too busy completing her memoirs to dissuade him from taking an interest when one of the Timson children is given an ASBO for playing football in the street. And pretty soon he realizes something fishy is going on. Why are the residents pursuing their vendetta against the Timson boy quite so strongly? Could they have a sinister reason for not wanting him on their street? John Mortimer's hilarious Rumpole novel, 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 his autobiography 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.

Summer's Lease - the classic, international bestselling novel by John Mortimer 'Amusing, entertaining ... and a cracking good read' Sunday Express 'And summer's lease hath all too short a date' - Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare 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 ... 'With a cosy fluency of wit, Mortimer charms us into his urbane tangle of clues' Mail on Sunday Summer's Lease, which was made into popular BBC TV mini-series starring John Gielgud, is a delightful novel from Rumpole author John Mortimer: witty, compassionate, humane, perfectly plotted and wonderfully readable. It will be adored by readers of P.G Wodehouse and P.D. James. Sir John Mortimer was a barrister, playwright and novelist. His fictional political trilogy of 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.

This compilation of witty mysteries captures John Mortimer's deft writing. Rumpole a la Carte, a delightful discourse on the British legal system, takes us from a restaurant battle over Rumpole's mashed spuds to a confrontation with a detective-novelist on a ship. The yarns of Rumpole on Trial are ingenious: devil worshippers, Juvenile Court, a mysterious seductress searching for a barrister to defend her husband for a murder not yet committed, and courtroom strategies a little too lunatic force Rumpole to face the Disciplinary Committee of the Bar Council. Rumpole and the Angel of Death offers a comic commentary on cruelty to animals, human rights, and the fallibility of the justice system.

'I thank heaven for small mercies. The first of these is Rumpole' Clive James Horace Rumpole, the irrepressible barrister fuelled by cigars, Tennyson, steak-and-kidney pud and the cooking claret from Pommeroy's wine bar, is back for further misadventures. Amid an unfortunate and temporary downturn in London crime, the Old Bailey Hack sits in Chambers (he never writes at home for fear of She Who Must Be Obeyed) and picks up his pen to recount six classic tales of his recent trials. Here he deals with, among others, a clergyman on a shoplifting rampage, a backstage theatrical murder, a villain with unfortunate sartorial taste and, worst of all, the possibility that he may have to hang up his wig and retire. 'Rumpole, like Jeeves and Sherlock Holmes, is immortal' P. D. James

Horace Rumpole - witty, eloquent, dishevelled and cynical - is one of fiction's best-loved barristers-at-law. In these twenty classic tales, Rumpole battles through the Old Bailey, whether defending various members of an incompetent South London crime family, taking on haute-cuisine chefs and showfolk or mocking the pomposity of his own profession, all the while being held in check by his wife, Hilda: the wonderful, fearsome She Who Must Be Obeyed. These collected stories, in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time, are a definitive introduction to one of the wisest and wittiest characters in British comic writing and a reminder of what justice should really be about. With a new introduction by Sam Leith, former literary editor of the Daily Telegraph and contributor to the Evening Standard, Guardian and Spectator.

Epic adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel. During World War Two, Charles Rider (Jeremy Irons) is stationed at the now deserted stately home, Brideshead Manor, formerly the residence of the Flyte family. He recalls how, as a Cambridge undergraduate, he first visited Brideshead after befriending Lord Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews). Charles then became caught up with the Flytes and their problems, most notably Sebastian's burgeoning alcoholism.

Eight short plays: Triangle, Gladly Otherwise, The Black and White, Trouble in the Works, Cleaning Up Justice, Collector's Piece, Conference and Can You Hear Me?