Brian Jacques

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brian Jacques

(James) Brian Jacques (born June 15, 1939) is an English author, best known for his Redwall series of fantasy books, as well as the Tribes of Redwall and Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series. He also completed two collections of short stories entitled The Ribbajack & Other Curious Yarns and Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales.

1 Biography
2 At Present
3 Bibliography
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Brian Jacques (pronounced Jakes) was born in Liverpool, England, growing up in the area surrounding the docks of Liverpool. He is known as Brian because both his father and one of his brothers are called James.

Mr. Jacques showed a knack for writing at an early age. At age ten, he was given an assignment of writing a story about animals, and he wrote about a bird that cleaned a crocodile's teeth. It was so good that his teacher refused to believe a boy could have written it and so had him caned for plagiarising a story.^{[citation needed]} He had always loved to write, but it was only then that he realized that he had a talent for writing. He attended St. John's School until the age of 15 when he left school (as was the tradition at the time) and set out to find adventure as a merchant sailor. He travelled to many ports and eventually grew tired of being a sailor and returned to Liverpool, where he held a series of different jobs including stevedore, truck driver, policeman, bus driver, comic, boxer, and folksinger. He has also written a stage play, 'Brown Bitter, Wet Nellies and Scouse'. Redwall was written for the children of the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind. He first met them when he delivered milk there as a truck driver. He began to spend time with the children and eventually began to write stories for them. He is considered a patron of the school. This accounts for the very descriptive style of the novel and the ones to follow. His script gained acclaim when Alan Durband, a dear friend (who also taught Paul McCartney and George Harrison) showed it to his (Durband's) own publisher without telling Brian. Mr. Durband told his publishers, "This is the finest children's tale I've ever read and you'd be foolish not to publish it." Soon after, he was summoned to London to meet with the publishers who gave him a contract to write the next five books in the series.

Brian Jacques tells us that the characters in his stories are based on people he has encountered. He based Gonff, Prince of Mousethieves, on himself when he was a young boy hanging around the docks of Liverpool. Mariel is based on his granddaughter. Constance the Badgermum is based on his grandmother. Other characters are a combination of many of the people he has met in his travels.

[edit] At Present

Until recently, Mr. Jacques hosted a radio show called "Jakestown" on BBC Radio Merseyside. After twenty-seven years as a familiar voice to the listeners of the BBC in Liverpool, he retired from radio in October of 2006. Ever the performer, Mr. Jacques is well-known for applying his acting and entertainment background in his presentations to legions of young fans at schools (he no longer visits schools, to his great regret, except in his hometown of Liverpool) and book stores across the United Kingdom and the United States. He still volunteers time and money for the Royal School for the Blind, as well as sponsoring a local children's writing contest. Mr. Jacques has two grown sons: Marc, a builder, bricklayer and carpenter; and David, who is a professor of art and a muralist. He spends spare time doing crosswords as well as walking his West Highland Terrier named "Teddy". He also still enjoys reading, but he avoids children's authors to keep his writing from being influenced. His novels have sold over twenty million copies worldwide and have been published in twenty-eight languages.

In 2001, Mr. Jacques suffered a mild stroke, but recovered. On March 16th, 2004, Mr. Jacques suffered a mild heart attack, but once again recovered. Currently his health is excellent and he continues to write at furious pace. In June of 2005, to his immense joy, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Liverpool.

His 19th Redwall novel, EULALIA! will be published in October of 2007, as will a new illustrated novel of the original Redwall novel.

Is known for his love for all the small creatures in the world. He especially loves mice, badgers, squirrels, otters, and hares. His inspiration came from the incident in which Bambi's mom was shot and killed. He still remembers where he was and what he was doing at that time.