Rumpole of the Bailey (book series) Rumpole of the Bailey (book series) Rumpole of the Bailey is a series of book created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer based on the television series "Rumpole of the Bailey". Mortimer adapted his television scripts into a series of short stories and novels starting in 1978. A series of anthologies and omnibus editions were also released. There have been six anthologies and collections that have presented previously published Rumpole stories. Three volumes of an "Omnibus" series that each gathered together three previously issued sets of stories into a single book. Two books that each presented
Rumpole of the Bailey an age of around 70 years, and past events in his life have been retconned to fit each story's time frame. Thus, in the books published in 1996 and before, he proposed to Hilda in 1938, and in books published in 2003 and after, it appears that he neither became a barrister nor met Hilda until after World War II ended in 1945. "Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders", containing his first unled case and his engagement to Hilda, takes place in the early 1950s, entirely inconsistent with the early stories. Since 1988, when Phyllida Erskine-Brown became a QC and