Jerry Cornelius

The Cornelius Quartet

In these four novels Jerry undergoes transformations, dies, is reborn, spends one entire novel as a shivering wreck, and eventually discovers his true natures.

The Final Programme

Jerry battles his brother Frank who has kidnapped his beloved sister Catherine. Frank dies, but Catherine is also killed. Jerry is sucked into the plans of Miss Brunner to create the perfect being by merging the bodies of Jerry and herself together. When this is done, a radiantly charismatic hermaphroditic being emerges from the machinery. All who see the new creature fall quaking to their knees. The creature itself announces that this is "a very tasty world".

A Cure for Cancer

Jerry is solo again, existing as negative character with black skin and white hair. He moves through a landscape of destroyed English cities and occupying American armies, a metaphor for contemporary Vietnam. He runs a clandestine "transmogrification" service for people who want to cast off their old selves, flesh and all. We meet the gluttonous Bishop Beesley, and his daughter Mitzi. Eventually Jerry drives the Americans to madness, causing them to burn everything, including themselves.

The English Assassin

All the supporting characters, particularly Una Persson, drive this novel while Jerry is nothing more than a whimpering heap of rags washed up on a beach and carried in the back of a lorry to safety. There are episodes in settings ranging from the cockpit of a Dornier Do X, the deck of an Edwardian sailing ship, the anarchic steppes of revolutionary Russia, and Victorian music-hall. Finally Jerry is able to revive as the character Pierrot, forever mourning his lost Columbine, who is Catherine.

The Condition of Muzak

Taking its title from the Walter Pater quote "All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music", this is a series of vignettes that cast Jerry as a teenager in Notting Hill, a character in the commedia dell'arte, a secret agent and a fool. Particularly notable are the Notting Hill scenes, which seem to reduce all the other parts of the canon to fantasies in the adolescent Jerry's mind. Other scenes fill in detail, if any were needed, between the novels. In the final scene Jerry's foul-mouthed mother dies, and on her deathbed she reveals the family's history as a distorted version of the canon which Jerry and his now-pregnant sister Catherine seem doomed to continue.

Notable characters

Jerry Cornelius, secret agent, superhero, adventurer, all things to all men (and women). A figure of almost complete anarchy. Typically destroys repressive authority. Later exposed as a false Harlequin, a tragic Pierrot at heart, or simply an adolescent fantasy.

Miss Brunner, Jerry's opposite. Representing stifling authority. Also follows a more mystical path than Jerry's fatalistic realism.

Bishop Beesley, endlessly corrupt gluttonous villain. Thirsts for power, money, pleasure.

Una Persson, a female version of Jerry, even to the extent of being Catherine's lover. In The Condition of Muzak she is revealed to be a true Harlequin.

Catherine Cornelius, Jerry's sister and incestuous lover. Usually dies tragically. Often pregnant by Jerry. In some stories, a masochistic figure.

Major Nye, a retired British Army officer, participant in secret missions, and Una Persson's sometime lover.

Colonel Pyat, a Russian emigre officer, also a sometime lover of Una Persson.

Cornelius Brunner, proclaimed Messiah of the Age of Science, a hermaphrodite amalgam of Jerry Cornelius and Miss Brunner in The Final Programme.

Professor Hira, occasionally another of Jerry's lovers. Counterpart to Jerry's character, always calm and in control.

Frank Cornelius, Jerry's scheming brother, Cain to Jerry's Abel. Usually killed by Jerry, but always returns.

Mrs. Cornelius, fat, libidinous, foul-mouthed mother to Frank, Jerry and Catherine. The quintessential urban survivor, a modern Mother Courage.

'Shaky' Mo Collier, a companion on many adventures, and also supplier of many and varied drugs to almost everyone. He almost acts as Jerry's right-hand man always there when needed, although somewhat unreliable in execution of tasks. (Created by M. John Harrison, rather than Moorcock.)

Work inspired by Jerry Cornelius

Moorcock encouraged other authors and artists to create works about Jerry Cornelius, in a sort of early open source shared world 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 and comic strips which had appeared in the International Times (with art by Mal Dean) by various hands, was published in 1971. It includes works by Moorcock himself, James Sallis, Brian Aldiss, Langdon Jones, M. John Harrison, Richard Glyn Jones, Alex Krislov and Maxim Jakubowski.

The story "...the price is worth it." by Graeme K Talboys and the subsequent novels in the Stormlight quartet (along with the short story collection Stormwrack) are centred on Charlie Cornelius, a daughter of the Cornelius clan with uncertain parentage.

In comics various writers have used elements of the character, most notably Bryan Talbot's character Luther Arkwright. Currently, Image publishes Matt Fraction's Casanova series which also pays homage to Cornelius. Tony Lee's Midnight Kiss actually features Cornelius, with Michael Moorcock's blessing. (Michael even wrote the introduction for the collected trade paperback). Grant Morrison created an Oscar Wilde-inspired steampunk version of Jerry Cornelius in Sebastian O, the original Vertigo mini-series. Another Morrison character, Gideon Stargrave of The Invisibles, is one of the few interpretations of the character that Moorcock has issues with, as he considers the character little more than a straight lift of Cornelius.[3]

The name of the protagonist of The Airtight Garage was changed in later editions to "Lewis Carnelian". In 2006, on his website, [4] [5] Moorcock himself wrote:

I didn't retroactively withdraw permission. Moebius was a friend of friends of mine when he started and someone (I don't know who) told him I didn't like the strip. I loved the strip, though I'd said it wasn't really Jerry Cornelius. This got taken to mean by someone that I didn't like it and Moebius, whom I came to know later and explain that I hadn't withdrawn permission, took the JC out of the title. He knows now that I liked it and had no problems with it.

Bad Voltage, a 1980s cyberpunk novel by Jonathan Littell that also dealt with themes of bisexuality and violence, features guest appearances by a decidedly has-been Jerry Cornelius and a substance-abusing 'Shaky' Mo Collier. The independent comic Elf-Thing featured not only Cornelius but members of his supporting cast in a very close homage. Cornelius is also seen in Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier as a child. Cornelius appears in the second part of Alan Moore's three-part comic The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century. Jerry Cornelius also appears briefly in Neurotwistin', a French novel by Laurent Queyssi (an appearance sanctioned by Moorcock). You can also find a version of Jerry Cornelius in Michael Moorcock's 1999 graphic novel "Multiverse".

Carter Kaplan plays a variation on Jerry Cornelius in his novel Tally-Ho, Cornelius!.

Author Bruce Sterling has described his recurring character Leggy Starlitz, star of a series of short stories and the novel Zeitgeist, as "a nonlinear descendant of Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius." [6]