The Deptford Mice

Development

Robin Jarvis conceived The Deptford Mice while working as a model-maker for television programmes and commercials. He was designing a large, furry alien but paused to draw something small, which became the mouse character Oswald Chitter. Jarvis continued sketching mice, and a friend who saw the drawings suggested sending them to a publisher. The publisher responded positively and asked if a story accompanied the illustrations; at that point there was none, so Jarvis wrote the story of The Deptford Mice.

He originally intended it as a picture book, but it grew into a 70,000-word manuscript. When his editor noted the length could support a trilogy, Jarvis cut the manuscript and developed ideas for the second and third books. He worked out the entire storyline before writing, allowing him to know the ultimate fates of all characters and insert foreshadowing easily. Jarvis incorporated real history and lore of Greenwich and Blackheath into the novels, believing that documented history in fantasy can enhance the reader's experience and make it more convincing.

Trilogy

In an old, empty house in the London borough of Deptford, a peaceful community of mice lives in constant fear of the vicious rats dwelling in the sewers below. These rats worship a mysterious living god named Jupiter. One mouse, Albert Brown, is lured into the sewers by dark enchantments emanating from a grill in the house’s basement. His daughter, Audrey, refuses to accept that he is dead and sets out to find him, uncovering the truth about the villainous Jupiter along the way.

The all-powerful squirrel queen, the Starwife, then commands Audrey to accompany the rat Madame Akkikuyu to the countryside against her will. Formerly in Jupiter’s service, Akkikuyu has gone mad and is now completely harmless, seeking only peace and happiness. However, as soon as they arrive, fieldmice begin turning up dead. Audrey unwittingly becomes the prime suspect, though an evil spirit is actually manipulating Akkikuyu.

In the final book, Jupiter returns as a vengeful specter, smothering the world in an eternal winter and assembling an invincible army of ghost rats wielding ice spears. The mice are helpless, as Jupiter is already dead. Worse still, the Starwife’s realm has been destroyed and her magical Starglass stolen. Jupiter plans to use it to blot out the sun and end all life on earth.

Other books

Jarvis has written prequels to The Deptford Mice, including The Deptford Histories trilogy, which explores the backstories of major characters like Jupiter and Thomas Triton, and The Deptford Mouselets, intended for younger children with a lighter tone and little to no violence. The Deptford Mice Almanack, written from an in-universe perspective, describes fictional traditions and lore of the animal characters and events taking place ten years after the main trilogy, ending with an ominous cliffhanger. Jarvis has stated he plans to write one more final Deptford Mice book set some years after The Final Reckoning, which he says will be the most frightening story of them all, with the evil Lord Hobb returning after years of imprisonment and the Three Thrones of the ancient rat gods rising again.

Adaptations

In 1995, Macdonald Young Books released abridged readings of the three novels on cassette tape, narrated by Tom Baker, Martin Shaw, and Jon Pertwee, later reissued in 2001 by Hodder Headline. After the trilogy's first US publication, Blackstone Audio released unabridged audiobooks narrated by Roe Kendall. In the mid-1990s, Jim Henson Pictures planned a film adaptation that was ultimately abandoned. In 2010, London-based Tiny Dog Productions created the first official stage production of The Dark Portal under licence from Robin Jarvis, with performances at The Space Theatre and later in April 2011 at the New Wimbledon Theatre.