This is a bibliography of the works of Michael Moorcock.
A bibliography of Moorcock's long-form fiction and shorter fiction directly connected with notable characters.
Elric first appeared in print in a series of novelettes, novellas, and short tales, many of which were published in Science Fantasy magazine. The author later wrote a series of novels about Elric. The 2001-2005 trilogy featured Oona von Bek as well as Elric. The Elric stories have frequently been edited, retitled, and combined with other material to form fix-ups as part of later republication campaigns, as described in the Collections setion below.
Internal Chronology | Publishing Order | Title | Form | Date | Originally published in |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 30 | The Folk of the Forest | Novelette | 2023 | The magazine New Edge Sword and Sorcery, Fall 2023 |
2 | 14 | Elric of Melniboné | Novel | 1972 | Stand-alone ISBN 0-09-112100-0 |
3 | 20 | The Fortress of the Pearl | Novel | 1989 | Stand-alone ISBN 0-441-24866-7 |
4 | 22 | The Black Blade's Summoning (aka The White Wolf's Song, aka The Black Blade's Song) | Novelette | 1994 | The anthology Michael Moorcock's Elric: Tales of the White Wolf, edited by Richard Gilliam and Edward E. Kramer |
5 | 16/17 | Sailing To the Future | Novelette | 1976 | The collection The Sailor on the Seas of Fate by Michael Moorcock |
6 | 16/17 | Sailing To the Present (revision of The Lands Beyond the World which was published later) | Novella | 1976 | The collection The Sailor on the Seas of Fate by Michael Moorcock |
7 | 15 | Sailing To the Past (revision of The Jade Man's Eyes) | Novelette | 1973 | Stand-alone ISBN 0-85659-010-X |
8 | 19 | Elric at the End of Time | Novelette | 1981 | The anthology "Elsewhere", edited by Mark Alan Arnold and Terri Windling |
9 [a] | 11 | The Dream of Earl Aubec (aka Master of Chaos) | Short Story | May 1964 | The magazine Fantastic Stories of Imagination |
10 | 1 | The Dreaming City | Novelette | June 1961 | The magazine Science Fantasy No. 47 |
11 | 26 | A Portrait in Ivory | Short Story | 2007 | The anthology Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories, edited by John Klima |
12 | 2 | While the Gods Laugh | Novelette | October 1961 | The magazine Science Fantasy No. 49 |
13 | 12 | The Singing Citadel | Novelette | May 1967 | The anthology The Fantastic Swordsmen, edited by L. Sprague de Camp |
14 | 13 | The Vanishing Tower (aka The Sleeping Sorceress) | Novella | 1971 | The anthology Warlocks and Warriors, edited by Douglas Hill |
15 | 21 | The Revenge of the Rose | Novel | 1991 | Stand-alone ISBN 0-441-00106-8 |
16 | 3 | The Stealer of Souls | Novelette | February 1962 | The magazine Science Fantasy No. 51 |
17 | 4 | Kings in Darkness | Novelette | August 1962 | The magazine Science Fantasy No. 54 |
18 | 28 | Red Pearls (aka How Elric Pursued His Weird into the Far World) | Novelette | 2010 | The anthology Swords and Dark Magic, edited by Lou Anders and Jonathan Strahan |
19 | 27 | Black Petals (aka How Elric Discovered an Unpleasant Kinship) | Novelette | 2008 | The magazine Weird Tales March–April 2008 |
20 [1] | 29 | White Steel (aka In Which our Heroes Discover a Lost Past) | Novella | 2022 | The collection The Citadel of Forgotten Myths by Michael Moorcock |
21 | 5 | The Flame Bringers (alternative title: The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams) | Novelette | October 1962 | The magazine Science Fantasy No. 55 |
22 | 18 | The Last Enchantment (aka Jesting With Chaos) | Short Story | 1978 | The anthology Ariel: The Book of Fantasy, Volume Three, edited by Thomas Durwood |
23 | 6 | To Rescue Tanelorn | Novelette | December 1962 | The magazine Science Fantasy No. 56 |
24 | 7 | Dead God's Homecoming | Novella | June 1963 | The magazine Science Fantasy No. 59 |
25 | 8 | Black Sword's Brothers | Novella | October 1963 | The magazine Science Fantasy No. 61 |
26 | 9 | Sad Giant's Shield | Novella | February 1964 | The magazine Science Fantasy No. 63 |
27 | 10 | Doomed Lord's Passing | Novella | April 1964 | The magazine Science Fantasy No. 64 |
28 [b] | 25 | The White Wolf's Son (aka Son of the Wolf) | Novel | 2005 | Stand-alone ISBN 0-446-61745-8 |
Uncertain | 23 | The Dreamthief's Daughter (aka Daughter of Dreams) | Novel | 2001 | Stand-alone ISBN 0-446-61120-4 |
Uncertain | 24 | The Skrayling Tree (aka Destiny's Brother) | Novel | 2003 | Stand-alone ISBN 0-446-53104-9 |
The first five novelettes were originally collected in The Stealer of Souls (1963) and the later four novellas were first published as a novel in an edited version called Stormbringer (1965). The 1965 novel had about a quarter of the text removed for reasons of length (mostly in the second and third novellas) and the remaining text rearranged with new bridging material added to make sense of the restructuring.
In 1977, DAW Books republished Elric's saga in six books that collected the tales according to their internal chronology:
Some subsequent collections grouped some of the stories together the same way the DAW versions did, and used the same titles for some of the groups. Although there were also cases where the same book title was used by multiple publishers for different collections of stories. The DAW paperbacks all featured cover art work by the same artist, Michael Whelan, and helped define the look of Elric and his sword Stormbringer. The DAW edition of Stormbringer restored some of the original structure and text compared to the 1965 release, but other revisions were performed and other material excised. A few oddments were collected in Elric at the End of Time (1984, ISBN 1-85028-032-0), which became the seventh book in the DAW line when they released it in the US in 1985. It includes two Elric-related tales: the title story and 1962's "The Last Enchantment", originally intended as the final Elric story but put aside in favour of those that eventually made up Stormbringer; it was not published until 1978.
In 1984, Nelson Doubleday / Science Fiction Book Club republished much of the Elric material then-available in The Elric Saga: Part One and The Elric Saga: Part Two. As new material was published, they expanded their collection with The Elric Saga: Part Three in 2002 and The Elric Saga: Part Four in 2005.
In the 1990s, Orion Publishing/Millennium released a two-book collection – Elric of Melniboné and Stormbringer – containing the Elric material then available. White Wolf Publishing released a similar two-volume compilation – Elric: Song of the Black Sword (1998) and Elric: The Stealer of Souls (2001). These two-volume compilations are arranged according to the internal chronology of the saga. The White Wolf text has minor revisions when compared to the Millennium release.
In 2001, Orion/Gollancz republished the first nine short stories, including the full text of Stormbringer as it appeared in Science Fantasy, in a single volume as Elric, volume 17 in the Fantasy Masterworks series.
From 2008 to 2010, Del Rey Books reprinted the material as a series of six illustrated books called Chronicles of the Last Emperor of Melniboné:
The Del Rey series arranged the stories in the sequence they were originally published, along with related fiction and nonfiction material. The version of Stormbringer featured in this collection restored all the original material missing since the 1977 DAW edition – which had formed the basis for all later editions – as well as Moorcock's preferred versions of all the revised material in an attempt to produce a definitive text. These volumes present the evolution of the character through early juvenile stories, early fanzine musings by Moorcock, some Elric stories, some others introducing the reader to the wider "Eternal Champion" theme, stories of other heroes who coexist with Elric in the realm of Melniboné, unpublished prologues, installments of Moorcock's essay "Aspects of Fantasy", a 1970s screenplay, a reader's guide, notes from an Elric series that never developed, contemporary reviews, and appreciation essays by other writers.
From 2013 to 2018, Victor Gollancz Ltd. republished much of Michael Moorcock's back catalogue, presented in internal chronological order along with previously unpublished material, in both print and e-book formats. Eight volumes included Elric stories:
From 2019 to 2023, Centipede Press republished a limited edition run of 7 volumes with many of the Elric stories: Elric of Melniboné, The Fortress of the Pearl, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, The Sleeping Sorceress, The Revenge of the Rose, Stormbringer, and The Dreamthief's Daughter.
The latest collection, from 2022, was by Saga Press, who republished a 4-volume collection of Elric stories:
The 2022 Saga Press collection is missing a few minor old Elric stories which don't affect the overall narrative: Elric at the End of Time, The Black Blade's Summoning, A Portrait in Ivory, and The Last Enchantment. The 2008-2010 Del Rey Books collection has all the old stories, but it's missing some of the newer stories: Red Pearls, White Steel, The Dreamthief's Daughter, The Skrayling Tree, and The White Wolf's Son. The 2013-2018 Victor Gollancz collection has all the old and new Elric stories except for Elric at the End of Time, plus all of the Elric collections are missing the 2023 story The Folk of the Forest (which is currently only available in New Edge Sword and Sorcery). [2] [3]
Michael Moorcock wrote several comics about Elric:
In 2011 Moorcock published the novel Les Buveurs D'Âmes with author Fabrice Colin. It was written in French, and has not been translated into English.
Several other authors have written works about Elric.
Corum (his name is an anagram of "Jeremiah Cornelius"; he was mentioned in an early list of Champion avatars as 'Corom Bannon Flurron') was the lead in a pair of trilogies and made appearances in several other books, notably The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, The Sleeping Sorceress and The Quest for Tanelorn.
The first trilogy, The Prince in the Scarlet Robe, consists of:
The three were first collected as The Swords Trilogy (1977) vt The Swords of Corum (1986)
The first and third volumes won the August Derleth Award and were adapted into a 12-issue comic series entitled The Chronicles of Corum (1986–88)
The second trilogy, The Prince with the Silver Hand, consists of:
The three were first collected as The Chronicles of Corum (1978). The last volume also won the August Derleth Award while the first book was adapted into the 4-issue comic series Corum: The Bull and the Spear.
The first series, a tetralogy consists of:
These four volumes were later collected as The History of the Runestaff and adapted into a two issue comic series in 1986. The four novels were collected in two volumes in 2015 as Jewel and Amulet and Sword and Runestaff.
The Chronicles of Castle Brass is the second Hawkmoon series and forms a kind of culmination for the entire saga of the Eternal Champion:
These three volumes were later collected as the box set/omnibus The Chronicles of Castle Brass.
Cornelius first appeared in a quartet of novels (TFP was initially published in parts in the magazine New Worlds):
After the third book a collection, The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius (1976), was released. The first edition included "The Peking Junction", "The Delhi Division", "The Tank Trapeze", "The Nature of the Catastrophe", "The Swastika Set-Up", "The Sunset Perspective", "Sea Wolves", "Voortrekker", "Dead Singers", "The Longford Cup" and "The Entropy Circuit". The 1987 edition includes "The Dodgem Division" as an epilogue. The 2004 edition replaced "Dead Singers", "The Swastika Set-Up", "The Longford Cup", "The Entropy Circuit" and "The Dodgem Division" with "The Spencer Inheritance", "The Camus Connection", "Cheering for the Rockets" and "Firing the Cathedral". The 1987 edition has been superseded by The New Nature of the Catastrophe, which includes its entire contents along with "The Murderer's Song", "The Gangrene Collection" and "The Roumanian Question". The paperback also included "All the Way Round Again", which had previously appeared as "The Enigma Windows" in Fabulous Harbours.
The next series of four short novels was collected as A Cornelius Calendar: The Entropy Tango (1981), The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century (1976), The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (a.k.a. Gold Diggers of '77) (1980) and The Alchemist's Question (1984). The main sequence continued with Firing the Cathedral (2002), Modem Times 2.0 (2008) Cheering for the Rockets (2007), Pegging the President (2018), and The Wokingham Agreement (2022).
Moorcock's original story, "The Adventures of Jerry Cornelius" (co-written with M. John Harrison) also appeared in The Distant Suns (1975, with James Cawthorn). It was adapted as a comic in The New Nature of the Catastrophe, a volume of Cornelius stories by Moorcock and several others. Cornelius was also the lead of the five-issue comics series "Midnight Kiss" (2005). Moorcock's Doctor Who novel The Coming of the Terraphiles (2010) featured a Captain Cornelius.
Graf Ulrich von Bek was introduced in the first volume of the trilogy and his descendants feature in the sequels.
Members of the family also feature in:
The original Eternal Champion trilogy is:
He also appears in the graphic novel The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell (with Howard Chaykin).
Originally published in Moorcock's juvenile weekly "Tarzan Adventures" which he edited in the 1950s the first twelve Sojan stories were collected in "Sojan the Swordsman" (1984).
Moorcock later wrote a short story, "The Lost Canal", which is a sequel to the Kane of Old Mars trilogy, set one million years later. It was first published in the 2013 anthology Old Mars , edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. [6] [7]
The original trilogy is:
The Hollow Lands won the August Derleth Award in 1976, Moorcock's fourth time in five years.
Three short stories in the same setting ("Pale Roses", "White Stars" and "Ancient Shadows") were assembled as Legends from the End of Time (1976). This collection was released as an omnibus with a novel in the same setting, The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming (a.k.a. A Messiah at the End of Time, based on the short story, Constant Fire) (1977), in the 1989 omnibus, Tales from the End of Time. Elric appeared with the Dancers in "Elric at the End of Time" (1981) and a new story, "Sumptuous Dress: A Question of Size at the End of Time" was published in the Summer 2008 issue of Postscripts . A 1993 edition from Millennium included the 3 short stories and the Elric addition, along with Constant Fire – which is not the original story but rather a revised chapter from The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming. It had been planned that the omnibus would have the full (revised) Mavis Ming novel but by error only included the revised chapter. The full (revised) novel later appeared in Behold the Man and other stories (1994, Phoenix House).
The trilogy was collected as A Nomad of the Time Streams .
Glogauer appears in Behold the Man (1969) and Breakfast in the Ruins (1972). He also cameos in The English Assassin and The End of All Songs.
A duology of comic spy adventures (revised from two Nick Allard books, see below):
In 2010, Moorcock wrote a Doctor Who novel, The Coming of the Terraphiles . A version of Jerry Cornelius makes an appearance.
As well as writing one of the Sexton Blake novels, Caribbean Crisis (1962), Moorcock wrote The Metatemporal Detective , a collection including "The Affair of the Seven Virgins", "Crimson Eyes", "The Ghost Warriors", "The Girl Who Killed Sylvia Blade", "The Case of the Nazi Canary", "Sir Milk-and-Blood", "The Mystery of the Texas Twister", "London Flesh", "The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius", "The Affair of Le Bassin Les Hivers" and "The Flaneur des Arcades de l'Opera". Another Moorcock Zenith story, Curare, appeared in the 2012 anthology Zenith Lives!.
The first was published as by Roger Harris (who had written the book, with some edits by Moorcock); the other two were by Moorcock writing as Bill Barclay:
He has also edited a number of other volumes, including two bringing together examples of invasion literature:
Corum Jhaelen Irsei is a fictional fantasy hero in a series of novels written by Michael Moorcock. The character was introduced in the novel The Knight of Swords, published in 1971. This was followed by two other books published during the same year, The Queen of Swords and The King of Swords. The three novels are collectively known as the "Corum Chronicles trilogy" or "the Chronicles of Corum". Both The Knight of the Swords and The King of the Swords won the August Derleth Award in 1972 and 1973 respectively. The character then starred in three books making up the "Silver Hand trilogy", and has appeared in other stories taking place in Moorcock's multiverse.
Michael John Moorcock is an English 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.
Elric of Melniboné is a fictional character created by English writer Michael Moorcock and the protagonist of a series of sword and sorcery stories taking place on an alternative Earth. The proper name and title of the character are Elric VIII, 428th Emperor of Melniboné. Later stories by Moorcock marked Elric as a facet of the Eternal Champion.
Stormbringer is a magic sword featured in a number of fantasy stories by the author Michael Moorcock. It is described as a huge, black sword covered with strange runes, created by the forces of Chaos. The sword has a will of its own and it is hinted that the sword may be controlled by an inhabiting entity. It is wielded by the doomed albino emperor Elric of Melniboné. Stormbringer makes its first appearance in the 1961 novella The Dreaming City. In the four novellas collected in the 1965 book Stormbringer, the sword's true nature is revealed.
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.
Elric!, subtitled "Dark Fantasy Roleplaying", is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game published under license by Chaosium in 1993. Based on the Elric of Melniboné books by Michael Moorcock, this is the fifth edition of the game originally titled Stormbringer.
The History of the Runestaff is an omnibus collection of four fantasy novels by Michael Moorcock, consisting of The Jewel in the Skull, The Mad God's Amulet, The Sword of the Dawn, and The Runestaff. Charting the adventures of Dorian Hawkmoon, a version of the Eternal Champion, it takes place in a far-future version of Europe in which the insane rulers of the Dark Empire of Granbretan are engaged in conquering the continent. Written between 1967 and 1969, it is considered a classic of the genre, and has proven highly influential in shaping subsequent authors' works.
The Chronicle of the Black Sword is the fourteenth studio album by the English space rock group Hawkwind, released in 1985. It spent two weeks on the UK Albums Chart peaking at #65. The album is based upon the adventures of Elric of Melniboné, a recurring character in the novels of science fiction author Michael Moorcock, a long-standing associate of the group, who contributes lyrics to one track on the album.
Domine is an Italian power metal band formed in 1983. The group from Florence, who began releasing demo tapes in 1986, got some attention with their first album, Champion Eternal, released in 1997. Domine went on to release four more albums, touring Europe and playing at many festivals. They have been linked to heroic fantasy and sword and sorcery writers like Michael Moorcock and Robert E. Howard for their lyrics related to the Elric of Melniboné and Conan the Barbarian novels.
Emperor of the Black Runes is the fourth album by Domine. It was recorded in May 2003 and released under Japanese label Avalon in February 2004.
The Broken Sword is a fantasy novel by American writer Poul Anderson, originally published on 5 November 1954. It was issued in a revised edition by Ballantine Books as the twenty-fourth volume of their Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in January 1971. The original text was returned to print by Gollancz in 2002. The novel is set during the Viking Age and the story contains many references to the Norse mythology.
Flashing Swords! #4: Barbarians and Black Magicians is an anthology of fantasy stories, edited by Lin Carter. It was first published in hardcover by Nelson Doubleday in May 1977 as a selection in its Science Fiction Book Club, and in paperback by Dell Books in November 1977.
The Final Programme is a novel by British science fiction and fantasy writer Michael Moorcock. Written in 1965 as the underground culture was beginning to emerge, it was not published for several years. Moorcock has stated that publishers at the time considered it was "too freaky".
Una Persson is a recurring character in many of Michael Moorcock's 'multiverse' novels. She has also been used as a character in stories by other writers. She was the character Moorcock chose to start a round-robin story in The Guardian.
Stormbringer is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game published under license by Chaosium. Based on the Elric of Melniboné books by Michael Moorcock, the game takes its name from Elric's sword, Stormbringer. The rules are based on Chaosium's percentile-dice-based Basic Role-Playing system.
The Dreaming City is a novella written by Michael Moorcock, which first appeared in Science Fantasy issue 47, in June 1961. It was the first story to feature the character Elric of Melniboné.
Stormbringer is a 1965 novel written by Michael Moorcock and featuring the character Elric of Melniboné. It is a partly abridged fix-up of four previously published stories from Science Fantasy 1963-1964, namely "Dead God's Homecoming", "Black Sword's Brothers", "Sad Giant's Shield" and "Doomed Lord's Passing". Moorcock restored and revised the text for the US edition of 1977.
Elric: Battle at the End of Time is a board wargame published by Chaosium in 1982, an update of the 1977 game simply titled Elric. It is based on the Elric of Melniboné books by Michael Moorcock. There have been three English language editions, Elric (1977), Elric: Battle at the End of Time (1982), and Elric (1984), published by Avalon Hill.
Elric: Song of the Black Sword is a story collection by Michael Moorcock published by White Wolf in 1995.
James Cawthorn was born in Gateshead on 21 December 1929 and died 2 December 2008. He was a critic, a writer and an illustrator, associated through much of his career with Michael Moorcock.