Jocelyn Brooke

Bernard Jocelyn Brooke (30 November 1908 – 29 October 1966) was an English writer and naturalist. He wrote several unique, semi-autobiographical novels, as well as some poetry. His most famous works include the Orchid Trilogy—The Military Orchid, A Mine of Serpents (1949), and The Goose Cathedral (1950)—and The Image of a Drawn Sword (1950).

Life and career Brooke was born at Folkestone in Kent, the third child of a wine merchant, who with his wife was a Christian Scientist. Sent initially to the King's School, Canterbury, Brooke was deeply unhappy there, and ran away twice. He then was moved to Bedales School before going up to Worcester College, Oxford, Brooke's childhood revolved mostly around his principal interests of amateur botany and fireworks, in the shadow of the First World War. "When the Second World War began he enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and became one of the pox wallahs, those working to treat venereal disease. Brooke was decorated for bravery."

The Military Orchid begins with the author's childhood obsession with botany, orchids and, in particular, the ultra rare orchis militaris, which gives the book its title and symbolic image. It muses on the strange fancies of childhood, Brooke's secret ambition to be a soldier, and the inevitable unpleasant imposition of school days on the imaginative child. Later it moves into Brooke's war service with the Royal Army Medical Corps venereal disease department in Italy and North Africa, though the search for the rare orchid is never far away. One of the five epigraphs in the book is from a Victorian guide to orchids. The quoted description of orchis militaris has a slightly mysterious, diaphanous air, similar to the atmosphere of the book: 'Rare in Spring. Grows in chalky districts and not always there.' However, the book also has a wry vein and beautiful evocations of the Kent countryside. The aesthetic recollections of childhood have an echo of Proust about them.

The book was published to what would now be called rave reviews in 1947.

Fiction: The Orchid Trilogy : The Military Orchid (1948) A Mine of Serpents (1949) The Goose Cathedral (1950) The Scapegoat . The Bodley Head: London. 1948 The Image of a Drawn Sword (1950) Passing of a Hero (1953) Private View (1954) The Dog at Clambercrown. The Bodley Head: London. 1955. Internet Archive link

Children's Fiction: The Wonderful Summer (1949)

Non-fiction: The Wild Orchids of Great Britain (1950) Ronald Firbank (1951) The Denton Welch Journals [as editor] (1952) The Flower in Season (1953) Elizabeth Bowen (1954) Aldous Huxley (1954) Ronald Firbank and John Betjeman (1962) Denton Welch: A Selection from his Published Works [as editor] (1963) The Birth of a Legend: A Reminiscence of Arthur Machen and John Ireland (1964)

Poetry: Six Poems (1928). [Privately printed] December Spring (1946) The Elements of Death (1952)

Journal articles: "Notes on the Occurrence of Orchis simia (Lamarck) in Kent". Journal of Botany (November 1938) 76: 337–341 "A New British Species of Epipactis". [Co-authored with Francis Rose]. Journal of Botany (April 1940) 78: 81–89