Mortimer, John (1923-2009), was an English lawyer, novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. He became famous for his stories about the humorous adventures of Horace Rumpole, an eccentric English defense lawyer. Rumpole appeared in many short stories, and his popularity was spread by three television series (1975, 1978, and 2003) first presented by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Many of Mortimer’s Rumpole stories were collected in Forever Rumpole: The Best of the Rumpole Stories (published in 2011, after his death).
Mortimer wrote three related novels called the Rapstone Chronicles that view English society of the middle and late 1900’s. The novels are Paradise Postponed (1985), Titmuss Regained (1990), and The Sound of Trumpets (1998). In Summer’s Lease (1988), Mortimer satirized English tourists in Italy.
Mortimer wrote several screenplays and many plays for the stage, radio, and television. Among his best-known plays are the short comedy about a lawyer, The Dock Brief (1957), and the autobiographical A Voyage Round My Father (1971). He also translated three comedies by the French playwright Georges Feydeau. Mortimer wrote the autobiographies Clinging to the Wreckage: A Part of Life (1982), Murderers and Other Friends: Another Part of Life (1994), and The Summer of a Dormouse: Another Part of Life (2000).
John Clifford Mortimer was born on April 21, 1923, in Hampstead, a suburb of London. He attended Oxford University but left in 1942. After the end of World War II in 1945, he studied law and became a lawyer in 1948. He was married to the English novelist Penelope Mortimer from 1949 to 1972. John Mortimer was a successful lawyer from 1948 until he retired in 1981. He was a strong opponent of censorship. As a lawyer, he gained widespread publicity for successfully defending several clients accused of publishing pornography. Mortimer was also a drama and film critic for several London newspapers. He was knighted in 1998. Mortimer died on Jan. 16, 2009.
