Rumpole of the Bailey

A Chronological List of the Stories

One of the great characters in English literature was introduced to the world by John Mortimer in 1975 in a play for BBC Television. The option for a series was taken up by Thames Television and the series ran for seven seasons. Interspersed with this, and subsequent to the conclusion of the series, John Mortimer wrote more Rumpole stories for different outlets.

This is a list of Rumpole books and short stories by John Mortimer showing which were refashioned for radio, when the stories made their way to print and, for some stories, adapted to all three media - sometimes with a change of title. It also lists the missing and lost Rumpole stories. See the Uncollected page on this website for a link to a pdf of these missing stories.

This site is a map of stories by John Mortimer in the Rumpole of the Bailey series of stories and presented in the order in which they appeared. A cursory glance at lists on the internet might suggest that the publication of the Rumpole tales is a simple sequence, but this is far from the truth. Some stories were issued in several different media (print, video, and audio); some had changes of title between forms - and some between printings. Nearly all the stories were collected in print form in one of the sixteen books in the series. Most of these were collections of short stories; only three of the books were novels.

While John Mortimer’s strength was undoubtedly the written word, perhaps a weakness was in organisation of his work. Not only were many stories retitled for a second outing but nine were sold to ephemeral magazines and newspapers and never collected by his publisher, Penguin, into one of his books. It is the task of this website to organise his Rumpole stories into an understandable order.

In the Stories list on this website linked at the head of the page the printed stories are given precedence, but their television or radio forms are also noted if their first appearance is in that medium. The first eight Rumpole books accompanied the seven television series (Rumpole of the Bailey, 1975-1992) and the 1980 radio drama series (Rumpole: The Splendours and Miseries of an Old Bailey Hack). As Mortimer was commissioned by Thames Television to write the TV series this is considered the first appearance of the stories, with the book as a companion and the second iteration, although for some TV series the book appeared before the broadcast. It must be remembered that Mortimer was both a literary author and a television writer. It is due to Thames Television producing Rumpole of the Bailey that Mortimer was able to write Rumpole stories well beyond the life of the seven season television show.

Where a story changes its title between forms the alternative title is noted. Changes of title are especially common in the adaptation to or from an audio version of a story for radio. A list of these changed titles can be found in the Radio page linked above.

In the Stories page the first appearance of a Rumpole story is written in bold. A story title not in bold indicates a second iteration of the story with a new title for a printed version. Under each story title is its source: television, radio drama or in print form.

Notes are added where required.

Comments and corrections can be sent using the link here.

A charactercure of Leo McKern as Rumpole in the Thames Television series Rumpole of the Bailey.