For forty years Michael Moorcock has been an influential presence in English fiction. As a writer, editor, and sponsor of new talent, he has had a great impact on popular writing and in channeling avant-garde ideas into the mainstream. Associated with, and in many ways responsible for, British "New Wave" science fiction during the 1960s, Moorcock has also been active in other fields, such as "literary" fiction, cinema, and rock music. His enormous output is impossible to categorize. Much of it combines the vitality and diversity of popular culture with the highest artistic standards. His eclectic imagination is fed by wide and diverse reading, especially in the literature of London and the Victorian period, and a fascination with ephemera of all kinds, from street ballads to cigarette cards.

Michael John Moorcock was born on 18 December 1939 in Mitcham, Surrey. The only child of Arthur Moorcock, a draftsman who deserted...