Talk:Brian Jacques

Liverpool in Lancashire?
Liverpool is a county borough and hasn't been part of Lancashire since 1889. 82.11.52.11 (talk) 14:59, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing this out! I've removed "in Lancanshire." In the future, feel free to correct the article yourself! PrincessofLlyr  royal court 19:47, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The county borough status is different to county status. At county level there's never been a county of Liverpool. Liverpool remained in the historic county of Lancashire until 1974. Liverpool was in the county of Lancashire when Brian was born so it is correct to enter Liverpool, Lancashire. See the Lancashire page it says, "The county was subject to significant boundary reform in 1974 that removed Liverpool and Manchester and most of their surrounding conurbations to form the metropolitan counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester." This is the correct format to use with such a birth as Brian's: Liverpool, Lancashire, England. From 1974 the correct format is Liverpool, Merseyside, England. As a compromise I have added (then in Lancashire now in Merseyside)C3MC2 (talk) 17:06, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Read like copyvio
This page needs to be checked out for a possible copyvio... the "bibliography" section reads like it's been ripped right out of a journalist's newspaper/magazine interview, as well as having problems with encyclopedic relavence, pov, grammer, spelling, and sentance flow. If nobody feels up to the task, I'll look into doing a rewrite sometime next week. Arcuras 16:27, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree.. Seems to be a lot of quotes or something like that. Going to give editing it a shot. KorbenDirewolf 00:54, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * While looking for background info on Jacques I saw several publishers' sites with articles remarkably similar to what was here. I've done a rewrite and hope its better than what was there. I know there's still room for improvment and probably extension. KorbenDirewolf


 * I checked the Redwall website and their Brian Jacques biography. Several of the sentences in this article were directly copied from there. So, yeah, I agree with what you're saying. Wasabirock

picturebooks featuring Redwall Abbey
I was unsure which section to place The Great Redwall Feast & A Redwall Winter's Tale due to the books not being considered canon by some fans. Fill free to move them to another section as you see fit. Markryherd


 * I moved them in with the rest of the Redwall material since, while technically not real novels in the series, they deal with the same subject matter, in a way. Tacked "(picture book)" on the ends of them to try and prevent confusion, as well as mixing the formatting around. May as well make them into links in the vain hope someone decides to catalog them at some point in time. Arcuras 17:00, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Stroke/sickness?
I know Brian suffered some sort of stroke one or two years ago? I actually looked this article up wondering if he was still alive. Apparently, he seems to be. But this article has no mention of it.

And the mentioning of Gonff...? That's a character way back, in the book Mossflower....if indeed the biography was ripped off, it sure is an old quote.

No, the mention of Gonff can be seen on the official Redwall site, and just cause the book is old, doesn't mean he can't still talk about it.

Also, Gonff is a character in The Legend of Luke.

Redwall Wiki
If you're interested in writing Redwall character bios or just contributing to Redwall online in general, check out the Redwall Wiki, http://redwall.wikia.com. This is an online communal resource dedicated to providing Redwall information. --LordTBT 00:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Awesome link, thanks for the heads up I'll definitely check it out. EliteArcher88 (talk) 11:29, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Jakes?
Why is his name pronounced "Jakes"? His name is from the French, should it not be pronounced as such?


 * Mr. Jacques is British, so at some point perhaps his ancestors changed the pronunciation. He has specifically stated how his name is pronounced, so there's no ambiguity here. ~MDD4696 00:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Most English speaking people with that last name pronounce it "Jakes", myself included. 160.84.253.241 21:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Possible upcoming vandalism
I would really recommend that this page be protected from edits by new or unregistered users. SomethingAwful just released a satirical piece about Mr. Jacques, and I'm sure the goons will vandalizing the page soon. ~Ghetto Gandalf 01:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Addition to Biography Section
The addition made today to the biography section leaves a lot to be desired. Seems to be some random anecdotes with questionable style and grammar. Not really encyclopedia material. Cpgray 19:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism
This page seems to have been quite badly vandalised, and then left unamended. I've re-loaded an older page to hopefully get rid of most of it, but really I know nothing about him (thus I came to this page) so am not qualified to do anything else.

Also, does anyone know why the comment about someone who taught the beatles? Is it really relevant? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.50.56 (talk) 16:49, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Controversy over Biography
Just read that portion of the biography. It doesn't make sense. "His teacher was very impressed with his writing" isn't correct. Someone has attempted to edit it, but it is reverted back to this statment. The redwall webite holds up the claim 98.27.141.151 makes that Jacques was accused of plagerism. Nice or in evil (talk) 22:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Nice or in evil. In the official Redwall website, Brian Jacques talks about himself as a student when the teacher accused him of plagarism because his writing on an assignment was more advanced than his current grade level.--Virusguy5611 (talk) 02:42, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It appears to be changed, in case you hadn't noticed. PrincessofLlyr (talk) 03:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Political Party
It says that his political party was humanitarian and socialist, are there any sources which verify this? Furthermore should it not be "political views"? If either is actually a political party then it should link to the article on his political party rather than articles on idealogy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hawjam (talk • contribs) 05:19, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I am going to delete the reference to his political party as it is still not sourced and neither is a political party anyway. Hawjam (talk) 03:38, 22 August 2011 (UTC)Hawjam

Disambiguation between Brian Jacks and Brian Jacques
In reverting my dab hatnote, Runch states:-


 * I'm not sure this is really necessary. The two names are neither spelled nor pronounced the same.

It might be obvious to someone who knows Brian Jacques that it's pronounced "Jakes", but by definition the dab is aimed at people looking for Brian JaCKS, i.e. not those people(!) IMHO the French pronounciation of "Jacques" (which I would assume in the absence of other knowledge) is similar enough. In addition, Brian Jakes redirects to this page, which is somewhat similar.

Ubcule (talk) 14:13, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Clearly I've made my viewpoint known. I don't think a disambig notice is necessary given the spelling, pronunciations, and occupations of the individuals. Anyone else care to weight in with any opinions? It's really not a big deal, just curious what others might think. - Runch (talk) 17:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Possible paragraph in need of splitting
Specifically, this one, which I feel should be split at the sentence beginning with "He is known..." (footnotes and "citation needed" removed):

"Jacques grew up in Kirkdale near to the Liverpool Docks. He was known by his middle name, Brian, because his father and a brother were also named James. His father loved literature and read his boy adventure stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, but also The Wind in the Willows with its cast of animals. Jacques showed early writing talent. At age ten, assigned to write an animal story, he wrote about a bird that cleaned a crocodile's teeth. His teacher could not believe that a ten-year-old wrote it, and caned the boy for refusing to admit copying the story. He had always loved to write, but only then did he realize the extent of his abilities. He attended St John's School until age fifteen, when he left school (as was usual at the time) and set out to find adventure as a merchant sailor. His book Redwall was written for his 'special friends', the children of the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind, whom he first met while working as a milkman. He began to spend time with the children, reading books to them. However, he became dissatisfied with the state of children's literature, with too much adolescent angst and not enough magic, and eventually began to write stories for them. He 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. His work gained acclaim when Alan Durband, his former English teacher (who also taught Paul McCartney and George Harrison), showed it to his (Durband's) own publisher without telling Jacques. 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, Jacques was summoned to London to meet with the publishers, who gave him a contract to write the next five books in the series."

Could anyone please tell me if I'm right? (Note: Italics added to title of "Redwall" in edit. Also, I didn't include the links, which I'm guilty of in other instances of copying and pasting paragraphs from Wikipedia when seeking approval in applying certain edits to them.)--Thylacine24 (talk) 01:16, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Jacques
I originally added information about his ancestry that was later removed and called irrelevant by the person who removed it. I'm not trying to get this put back but I would like to explain for information purposes why this information is relevant. Jacques had little knowledge of his father's background. I do remember him saying he was French on his father's side and given his surname looks French misunderstandings are likely so hence the need for some information about his true ancestry. The Jacques surname goes back hundreds of years in Lancashire there's no French father or grandfather in his tree.

For information purposes here is the original text that was removed: "Jacques' father, James, was born in Liverpool in 1907. His parents, Thomas Jacques and Ada Smith, moved to Liverpool from the St Helens area in the 1890s. The Jacques family had Lancashire roots; there is no record of them having French ancestry. Ellen Ryan was born in Liverpool in 1908. She came from an Irish family with roots in a number of different Irish counties; her father, Matthew Ryan, was born in County Wexford in 1872. Ellen's mother, Elizabeth "Cissy" McGuinness, was born in Liverpool in 1882."C3MC2 (talk) 15:36, 2 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I've put in text and a source about his ancestry because changes to the article have shown that people do add information about his ancestry but they usually get it wrong because they base it on comments made by Brian that were guesses at his family's origins and are not supported by any evidence. It's 2024 there are plenty of online resources for family history research in England it's easy to determine the immediate ancestral lines of English-born people. Here is a link to source records showing Brian's ancestors:- https://merseysidebiographypages.weebly.com/brian-jacques.htmlC3MC2 (talk) 20:19, 13 May 2024 (UTC)