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Jerry Cornelius

One of Michael Moorcock's most popular fictional creations was Jerry Cornelius, a kind of hip secret agent of ambiguous and occasionally polymorphous sexuality; the same characters featured in each of several Cornelius books, but the individual books had little connection with one another, as a variation of the multiverse theme. The first Jerry Cornelius book, The Final Programme was made into a feature film starring Jon Finch and Jenny Runacre.

The series draws plot elements from Moorcock's Elric series, as well as the Commedia dell'arte. Moorcock hints in many places that Cornelius may be an aspect of the Eternal Champion. Characters from the Cornelius novels show up in much of Moorcock's other fiction: for example, Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time series has a character called Jherek Carnelian; Una Persson appears in the Dancers series, the Oswald Bastable books, and possibly as Oona in the latest Elric books; and Colonel Pyat has his own non-SF series of books by Moorcock, beginning with Byzantium Endures. The location of Notting Hill in London features promimently.

Moorcock encouraged other authors and artists to create works about Jerry Cornelius, in a sort of early open source attempt at open brand sharing. One example is Norman Spinrad's The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde; another is Mœbius's The Airtight Garage. The Nature of the Catastrophe, a collection of Jerry Cornelius stories, was published in 1971. It includes works by Moorcock himself, James Sallis, Brian Aldiss, Langdon Jones, M. John Harrison, Alex Krislov and Maxim Jakubowski.