James Brian Jacques (pronounced "Jakes") (15 June 1939 – 5 February 2011) was an English author best known for his Redwall series of novels 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.

Brian Jacques was born in Liverpool, England, on 15 June 1939. His parents were James Alfred Jacques, a Haulage Contractor, and Ellen Ryan.

James Alfred Jacques was born in Liverpool in 1907. The Jacques family moved to Liverpool from the St Helens area in the 1890s. Many generations of the Jacques family had lived in Lancashire there is no record of them having French roots.

Ellen Ryan was born in Liverpool in 1908. She came from a Liverpool Irish family with roots in a number of different Irish counties. Ellen's father, Matthew Ryan, was born in County Wexford, Ireland in 1872.

Brian 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 stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Rice Burroughs.