Sir John Mortimer published his first collection of Rumpole stories in Penguin in 1978. By the time he died in January 2009, leaving behind 4000 words of a recently begun Rumpole novel, the character of Horace Rumpole had become his most famous fictional creation. These seven Rumpole Christmas stories were originally commissioned by a number of British and American magazines, and are here published in book form for the first time.