Mossflower

Jacques didn’t start writing the Redwall series until he was middle-aged. Prior to that point, he held numerous jobs in unrelated fields. At one time or another, he was a merchant seaman, truck driver, milkman, standup comedian, postmaster, fireman, and radio show host. This eclectic background implies a respect for the common folk and is reflected in the author’s use of multiple humble species of animals, each of whose unique gifts contributes to the common good.

A native of Liverpool, England, Jacques first conceived the idea for the series while reading to children with blindness at a local school. He found most of the books available for young readers to be unsatisfactory. In his opinion, such reading material contained too much emotional tragedy and too little magic. As a result, Jacques began writing Redwall merely to entertain the students who came to listen to his stories. Because his initial audience consisted of children with blindness, Jacques was careful to use sensory descriptions in Redwall that weren’t confined to sight. This stylistic technique continued through the rest of the series as well.

The world of Redwall revolves around a fictitious abbey of the same name located somewhere in the medieval English countryside. However, many of the books in the series are set in imaginary lands far from the abbey and tell the stories of fabled heroes who are only tangentially related to the original location. Some novels begin before Redwall Abbey is constructed, as with Mossflower.

Even though the setting physically corresponds to a Christian monastery during the Middle Ages, religion doesn’t factor into the Redwall series. Brothers and Sisters who belong to the Redwall Order aren’t segregated by gender as they would be in a Christian religious house. Neither is a specific version of divinity preached in any of the books. Rather, good deeds, kindness, and the Golden Rule take precedence over religious dogma.

Just as the series’ setting and its religious affiliations are fluid, so is the timeframe depicted. The stories span multiple centuries that don’t follow a chronological progression from book to book. However, the cultural context tends to remain consistently medieval, with little indication of how much time has elapsed from one story to the next. The characters also don’t remain consistent throughout the series.

For example, the novel Redwall describes the adventures of a young mouse monk named Matthias. He longs to be a hero like the legendary Martin the Warrior. While Martin appears in dreams and visions to inspire the young monk’s behavior, he lived many centuries before Matthias was born. Martin doesn’t appear in the flesh until Mossflower, the second book in the series. In various installments, he also acts as a source of inspiration to other protagonists who are resisting evil just as he did.

Despite the frequent changes of central characters, the heroes and villains in the series tend to be confined to particular species. Wildcats, rats, foxes, weasels, birds of prey, crows, snakes, and reptiles are typically the troublemakers. Similarly, the hero role is usually reserved for mice, badgers, hares, otters, and squirrels.

There are 22 books in the Redwall series, and Jacques was clearly still receiving fresh inspiration from his fanciful imaginary world. His final book, The Rogue Crew, was published posthumously in 2011.