AND GOT PUBLISHED AFTER A FRIEND SECRETLY SUBMITTED HIS MANUSCRIPT. I had all of these pages in a supermarket bag. And it came to 800 pages because I just used one side. "I thought, 'What's wrong with a little bit of magic in their lives?' … So I went home and wrote on recycled paper. According to The New York Times, however, he found the reading material to be “dreadful” and “preoccupied with the ‘here and now’ of teenage angst and divorce.” So he set out to create better children’s lit for these students-the proper kind, with heroes, villains, and the former’s adventurous triumph over the latter. In the years before Redwall, the series’ first book, was published in 1986, Jacques was working as a milkman in Liverpool and volunteering as a reader for students at the Royal School for the Blind, a regular stop on his route.
HE GOT THE IDEA FOR REDWALL WHILE VOLUNTEERING WITH BLIND STUDENTS. The renowned writer was “reared by the Liverpool docks,” according to the Times, and showed early promise at the age of 10 with “a fine short story about a bird and a crocodile.” Sadly, however, his teacher thought it was too good (to be written by a child, that is) and caned Jacques as punishment for the perceived plagiarism.īy the age of 15, Jacques had had his fill of school (and his father), and signed on for work as a merchant seaman-the first of various jobs he’d hold over the next few decades, which included work as a longshoreman, a boxer, a bus driver, a stand-up comic, and a “bobby,” or police constable. IN HIS YOUTH, JACQUES WORKED AS A MERCHANT MARINE, A POLICE CONSTABLE, A BOXER, AND MORE. And while the surname’s spelling seems to suggest French heritage somewhere along the way (and Jacques would often say his father was half-French), the family isn’t sure of its origin. BRIAN JACQUES’ SURNAME IS PRONOUNCED “JAKES” (YES, REALLY).īorn James Brian Jacques in Liverpool, England in 1939, the prolific author’s last name is pronounced “jakes,” like “makes” or “takes,” as The New York Times and Washington Post pointed out in 2011 after Jacques passed away.
So whether you were forever aligned in heart and deed with the mores of Martin the Warrior or found yourself secretly cheering for the Feral Cat Army of Green Isle, there’re probably a few epic secrets about the books’ noble species, vermin, and creator that you never uncovered in your journeys around Redwall Abbey. Jam-packed with characters and conflict from the shores of tumultuous Abbey Pond to the mountain fortress of Salamandastron (and filling 22 novels), the realm of Brian Jacques’ Redwall series was a huge place for both heroic woodland creatures and avid young readers alike-ultimately, one “as big or as small as you want it to be in your imagination,” Jacques once told Scholastic.
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