A Voyage Round John Mortimer A Biography of the Creator of Rumpole of the Bailey

by Grove, Valerie

• ISBN13: 9780670018802
• ISBN10: 0670018805
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-29
• Publisher: Viking Adult

Summary

The tremendously dishy life of one of the most admired and lively literary figures today Novelist, playwright, and barrister Sir John Mortimer has led an extraordinarily rich and daring life, privately and professionally, much of it in the public eye. His own writings, from the play A Voyage Round My Fatherto his wildly popular books in the Rumpole series, to his three acclaimed volumes of autobiography, and his screenplay for Brideshead Revisited, have rewarded readers and viewers with insight and humor. Now, for the first time, biographer Valerie Grove has been given full access to Mortimer. A Voyage Round John Mortimertraces Mortimer’s legal and literary career, from his first attempts at writing novels and plays, and the early help he offered his barrister father, through his great triumphs in court, to the creation of Horace Rumpole, one of the most popular characters in contemporary fiction and television. Mortimer’s personal life—including his marriages to Penelope Mortimer and to Penny II, and his many affairs—is as colorful as any fiction he’s written. Correcting the many errors and half-truths found in a previous biography by Graham Lord, Valerie Grove’s book is essential reading for Mortimer’s many fans.

Author Biography

Valerie Grove is a journalist who writes for the Times (London). Her first biography was the acclaimed Dear Dodie, a life of the playwright and novelist Dodie Smith.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Author's Note	p. xi
An Only Child	p. 1
The Clever Boy	p. 25
Among the Aesthetes	p. 43
Into Bohemia	p. 59
The Penelopiad	p. 74
Paterfamilias, inter alia	p. 92
Love and Lizards	p. 108
The Media Mortimers	p. 128
Losing a Father, Gaining a Son	p. 143
Had a Wife and Couldn't Keep Her	p. 162
Queen's Counsel and Farceur	p. 175
A Bachelor Life in Little Venice	p. 195
The Defence of Literature	p. 212
A New Penny Turns Up	p. 230
The Wizard of Oz	p. 246
Home Again to Turville Heath Cottage	p. 265
The Old Darling	p. 283
Lucid Indifference	p. 303
'How are you with God?'	p. 322
No More Moaning of the Bar	p. 342
The Politics of Paradise	p. 360
Summer's Leases	p. 371
Scribble, Scribble, Scribble	p. 389
Penny Tells It Like It Is	p. 408
Nothing Like a Dormouse	p. 429
The Family Reunion	p. 450
Coda	p. 468
Notes	p. 485
List of Works	p. 491
Bibliography	p. 497
Acknowledgements	p. 499
Permissions	p. 501
Index	p. 503
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