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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.

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...  Read More