Alan Moore the British author known for V For Vendetta and Watchman among other works, has signed a deal with Bloomsbury for a story collection and a five-volume fantasy series called Long London.

In a statement, Moore said he was “bursting with fiction, bursting with prose” and thanked his publisher for its commitment to “expanding the empire of the word”.

Moore’s story collection Illuminations, scheduled for autumn 2022, takes in everything from ghosts to the big bang theory.

Long London follows a “sometimes-accessible shadow city that is beyond time”, starting with London after the Second World War and “following the populations of writers, criminals, artists, and magicians through that familiar city and a version of London just beyond our knowledge”, according to Bloomsbury.

The first volume of Long London comes out in 2024.