21 Facts About Brian Jacques

James Brian Jacques was an English novelist known for his Redwall series of novels and Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series.

Brian Jacques was born in Liverpool on 15 June 1939.

Brian Jacques's parents were James Alfred Jacques, a haulage contractor, and Ellen Ryan.

Brian Jacques was known by his middle name, Brian, because his father and a brother were named James.

Brian Jacques's father loved literature and read his boys adventure stories by Daniel Defoe, Sir Thomas Mallory, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, but The Wind in the Willows with its cast of animals.

Brian Jacques had always loved to write, but only then did he realize the extent of his abilities.

Brian Jacques attended St John's School until age fifteen, when he left school and set out to find adventure as a merchant sailor.

Brian Jacques began to spend time with the children, reading books to them.

Brian Jacques is known for the very descriptive style of his novels, which emphasize sound, smell, taste, gravity, balance, temperature, touch, and kinesthetics, not just visual sensations.

Brian Jacques's work gained acclaim when Alan Durband, his former English teacher, showed it to his own publisher without telling Jacques.

Brian Jacques did not shy away from the reality of battle, and many of the "good" creatures die.

Brian Jacques was highly involved in the audio books of his work, even enlisting his sons and others to voice Redwall inhabitants.

Brian Jacques said that the characters in his stories are based on people he has encountered.

Brian Jacques based Gonff, the self-proclaimed "Prince of Mousethieves", on himself when he was a young boy hanging around the docks of Liverpool.

Brian Jacques remembered well the rationing during and after the war, when he fantasized about the dishes in his aunt's illustrated Victorian cookbook.

Brian Jacques was known to prefer old-fashioned ways; he always preferred an old typewriter as being more reliable than a computer, and he was known to be not fond of videogames and other modern technology, though he allowed an animated television series to be produced, which aired on PBS in the United States.

Brian Jacques was pleased to be recognized by the people of Liverpool.

Brian Jacques's novels have sold more than twenty million copies worldwide and have been published in twenty-eight languages.

Brian Jacques hosted a radio show called Jakestown on BBC Radio Merseyside from 1986 to 2006, featuring selections from his favourite operas.

In 2011, Brian Jacques was admitted to the Royal Liverpool Hospital to undergo emergency surgery for an aortic aneurysm.

Brian Jacques died from a heart attack on 5 February 2011.