Brian Jacques, dissatisfied with the young adult fiction available — too much adolescent angst, he later said — and vowed to write his own.

He wrote what he called “a proper story,” brimming with battle and gallantry. Titled “Redwall” and published in 1986, it became the first installment in what is now a best-selling 21-volume children’s fantasy series.

Jacques died on Saturday in Liverpool, at 71. The death was announced by his North American publisher, Penguin Young Readers Group.