Michael Butterworth (born 1947) is a British author, publisher and campaigner who first became known publicly as an author of New Wave science fiction. He later founded the publishing house Savoy Books with David Britton in 1976 and the contemporary art journal Corridor8 with Sarajane Inkster in 2009. He successfully fought a charge of obscenity against Britton's controversial novel Lord Horror during 1992, the first novel to be banned in England since Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn in 1967.
Butterworth started his writing career in 1966 for New Worlds Magazine, the main British magazine featuring New Wave literature, edited by Michael Moorcock and later Charles Platt. His work for this and various New Wave anthologies shares similarities with his contemporaries, including J G Ballard, who collaborated with him on two works of fiction, and William S. Burroughs whom he was later to commission and publish.
His publishing career began during 1968 with the small press literary magazines Concentrate, Corridor and Wordworks with Jay Jeff Jones as associate editor. At this time he was, additionally, a contributor of fiction and poetry to many small press publications.
Butterworth met David Britton during the early 1970s by means of the latter's Manchester-based bookshop The House on the Borderland. After a deal was made with New English Library, Savoy's early titles were distributed worldwide. The company's models were the fin de siècle magazine The Savoy (hence the name), New Worlds and Weird Tales, and for production style the British publisher Picador and the American houses Ace Books and Lancer Books. The company's initial intent was to release titles in trade format editions by authors that Butterworth & Britton wanted to see kept in print, after which the company began creating its own titles. Savoy Books is one of Michael Moorcock's principle independent publishers.
After the decrease of popularity of New Wave products, and seeking to support his young family as a single parent, during 1976 Butterworth began a series of fantasy and television tie-in commissions. The first of these, The Time of the Hawklords, was a fantasy novel categorised as being in the space-rock genre, based on the stage personas of the rock band Hawkwind. A sequel, The Queens of Deliria, was completed in 1977. Both books were co-credited to Michael Moorcock, who has said that his involvement with the first was negligible and that he had no involvement with the second at all.[2] A third novel in the Hawklords trilogy is Ledge of Darkness illustrated by Bob Walker; this was only available as part of a Hawkwind 4 LP retrospective box set '25 Years On' in 1994, which never got proper distribution.[citation needed] He wrote novelizations of the second series of the TV show Space:1999 for ITC Entertainment. This process was frustrated by, having just three weeks to write each novel, access to only four of the scripts and only the prescreening of the first episode.[3]
During 1978 Butterworth co-edited (with Britton) The Savoy Book, an anthology of prose and graphics. Around this time he also became friends with Ian Curtis of Joy Division, through Curtis's interest in William Burroughs. The friendship was to have a bearing on his subsequent career.
From 1980 to 1997, 'clean-up' campaigner Police Chief Constable of Manchester, James Anderton, targeted Savoy Books and their Manchester-based retail outlets. Multiple raids were made, with charges of obscenity being brought against the company and its directors. Butterworth retaliated, his intent being to bring to wider attention what he claimed was the misuse of Section Three of the Obscene Publications Act, by which publications of literary merit were being seized and destroyed without a jury trial. This did not, however, prevent Britton being sentenced to twenty-eight days in Strangeways Prison, Manchester, in May 1982, the first of two such jail sentences Britton received for publishing books. Nor did it prevent the eventual destruction of thousands of graphic editions of Lord Horror and Meng & Ecker seized by the police during related raids. The appeal of these was hampered by the prosecution's plea of Public Interest Immunity when the defence asked them to say why they thought Butterworth & Britton were not serious publishers. The sitting magistrate, Janet Hayward, allowed the plea. As against a 'disreputable publishing house', therefore, a jury trial was disallowed and the charge of obscenity was sustained. The charge was then sustained at appeal, in the Divisional Courts in London.
During 1984, Butterworth co-edited Savoy Dreams (again with Britton), a sequel to The Savoy Book. This contained, as well as fiction and graphics, Butterworth's account of the police activity and court case resulting in Britton's first imprisonment.
In 1989, Butterworth contributed to, and edited, Britton's very controversial novel Lord Horror. Featuring a parody of Chief Constable Anderton, the book was quickly seized by police. It was found obscene at the novel's trial in 1991. The case was contested by Butterworth, who sought the help of human rights organisation Article 19. In July 1992, at a court of appeal, the charge was overturned, with a defence directed by Geoffrey Robertson QC.
From 1989 (to present), Butterworth has been the editor of all Britton's Lord Horror novels as well as the Lord Horror graphic spin-offs and Meng & Ecker graphic series.
In 2006, while continuing to co-manage Savoy Books, Butterworth re-established his independent credentials, experimenting first with print-on-demand using the imprint Michael Butterworth Books. During the same year, at the request of Space 1999 publisher and fan Mateo Latosa he rewrote his novelisations of the television series Space 1999: Year Two, revising and re-ordering the stories to bring them into concordance with the broadcast series and making a consistent Space:1999 universe. The collection included a novelisation of the episode, "The Taybor", which had not been included in the original books. The omnibus edition was published as a limited edition hardcover by Powys Media.
From 2011, he has been contributing short fiction and poetry to Emanations, the annual anthology edited by Carter Kaplan and published by International Authors.
From August to 5 September 2014, Butterworth staged the exhibition Use and Abuse of Books.[4]
During 2016 Butterworth began a series of memoirs. The first, "The Blue Monday Diaries: In the Studio With New Order", is an account of his time spent with the band in the early nineteen-eighties. The book also contains a picture of alternate Manchester at that time. Other volumes are planned to follow.
Novels
The Time of the Hawklords (1976; co-credited to Michael Moorcock)[5]
Queens of Deliria (1977; co-credited to Michael Moorcock)
Ledge of Darkness (1995; graphic novel illustrated by Bob Walker)
Michael John Moorcock is an English–American writer, particularly of science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and is also a successful musician. He is best known for his novels about the character Elric of Melniboné, which were a seminal influence on the field of fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s.
Robert Newton Calvert was a South African-British writer, poet, and musician. He is principally known for his role as lyricist, performance poet and lead vocalist of the space rock band Hawkwind.
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Michael John Harrison, known for publication purposes primarily as M. John Harrison, is an English author and literary critic. His work includes the Viriconium sequence of novels and short stories (1971–1984), Climbers (1989), and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, which consists of Light (2002), Nova Swing (2006) and Empty Space (2012).
The Eternal Champion is a fictional character created by British author Michael Moorcock and is a recurrent feature in many of his speculative fiction works.
Viriconium is a series of novels and stories written by English author M. John Harrison between 1971 and 1984, set in and around the fictional city of the same name.
John Coulthart is a British graphic artist, illustrator, author and designer who has produced book covers and illustrations, CD covers and posters. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed Lovecraft-inspired book The Haunter of the Dark: And Other Grotesque Visions which contains a collaboration with Alan Moore entitled The Great Old Ones that is unique to this book and also has an introduction by Alan Moore.
Karl Edward Wagner was an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher of horror, science fiction, and heroic fantasy, who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and originally trained as a psychiatrist. He wrote numerous dark fantasy and horror stories. As an editor, he created a three-volume set of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian fiction restored to its original form as written, and edited the long-running and genre-defining The Year's Best Horror Stories series for DAW Books. His Carcosa publishing company issued four volumes of the best stories by some of the major authors of the so-called Golden Age pulp magazines. He is possibly best known for his creation of a series of stories featuring the character Kane, the Mystic Swordsman.
The Obscene Publications Act 1959 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament that significantly reformed the law related to obscenity in England and Wales. Prior to the passage of the Act, the law on publishing obscene materials was governed by the common law case of R v Hicklin, which had no exceptions for artistic merit or the public good. During the 1950s, the Society of Authors formed a committee to recommend reform of the existing law, submitting a draft bill to the Home Office in February 1955. After several failed attempts to push a bill through Parliament, a committee finally succeeded in creating a viable bill, which was introduced to Parliament by Roy Jenkins and given royal assent on 29 July 1959, coming into force on 29 August 1959 as the Obscene Publications Act 1959. With the committee consisting of both censors and reformers, the actual reform of the law was limited, with several extensions to police powers included in the final version.
Meng and Ecker was a British underground comic written by David Britton and illustrated by Kris Guidio. It was published in 1989 by the controversial Manchester-based company Savoy and lasted for nine issues before being banned in 1992 under obscenity laws.
David Britton was a British author, artist, and publisher. In the 1970s he founded Weird Fantasy and Crucified Toad, a series of small press magazines of the speculative fiction and horror genres. In 1976, Britton and Michael Butterworth co-founded the publishing house Savoy Books.
Mojo Press was a small press which primarily published science fiction, horror, and western books and graphic novels between 1994 and 1999.
Richard Ira "Rick" Klaw, is an American editor, essayist, and bookseller.
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Dark They Were and Golden Eyed was a science fiction bookshop and comic book retailer in London during the 1970s; the largest of its kind in Europe. Specialising in science fiction, occultism, and Atlantis, the central London shop also played a key role in bringing American underground comics to the United Kingdom. It also sold American editions of mainstream science fiction books that were not easily obtained anywhere else.
This is a bibliography of the works of Michael Moorcock.
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Savoy Dreams is a book by David Britton and Michael Butterworth published in 1984.
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