People like Kyril Bonfiglioli

Kyril Bonfiglioli (born Cyril Emmanuel George Bonfiglioli; 29 May 1928 – 3 March 1985) was an English art-dealer, magazine editor and comic novelist. His eccentric and witty Mortdecai novels have attained cult status since his death.

Bonfiglioli was born in Eastbourne on the south coast of England to an Italo-Slovene father, Emmanuel Bonfiglioli, and English mother, Dorothy née Pallett. His mother and brother died in an air raid when he was 14. Having served in the British Army from 1947 to 1954, and been widowed, he applied to Balliol College, Oxford, where he took his degree. After his divorce from his second wife he lived in Silverdale in Lancashire, then Jersey and Ireland. He edited Science Fantasy magazine for a period from 1964 to 1966, appointed by David Warburton of Roberts and Vinter Ltd.; and the successor Impulse for its first few issues in 1966 before handing the reins to Harry Harrison. He died in Jersey of cirrhosis in 1985, having had five children.