Over three decades and through two world wars, in the deserts of Libya and the woodlands of Italy, in the chalk downs of Kent, Sussex and Hampshire, he searched continually for his most beloved and elusive Orchis militaris, the military orchid. Jocelyn Brooke blends memoir, botany and satire to recall this lifelong quest.

A tour de force of autobiographical fiction by one of the most fascinating writers of the mid-twentieth century

A haunting classic of gay literature

A searing portrait of doomed adolescent angst

A searing portrait of the inter-war English middle-class by the exceptional writer and naturalist Jocelyn Brooke