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: "the dancers at the end of time" series has a character called jherek carnelian who is the son of lord jagged of canaria, and there are several hints in the series that lord jagged may be a guise of jerry cornelius; the cornelius-series character una persson also appears in the "dancers" series and the oswald bastable books, and may also be the character "oona" in the later elric books; colonel pyat has his own non-sf series of books by moorcock, beginning with "byzantium endures".