Jocelyn Brooke
Encyclopedia
Jocelyn Brooke was an English author born in Kent
. He wrote several unusual and semi-autobiographical novels as well as some poetry. His most famous works include the Orchid Trilogy—The Military Orchid (1948), A Mine of Serpents (1949) and The Goose Cathedral (1950)—and the Kafkaesque Image of a Drawn Sword (1950).
Educated at Bedales
(after escaping twice from a public school) and 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. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps
during the next war, and elements of his experiences, and his love of the military life, appear in most of his later works.
Though the Orchid Trilogy strays into a typically English vein of humour, the idyllic land of his childhood and his obsession with le paradis perdu often bring in an element of intense melancholy, something developed in paranoia and isolation in The Image of a Drawn Sword.
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
. He wrote several unusual and semi-autobiographical novels as well as some poetry. His most famous works include the Orchid Trilogy—The Military Orchid (1948), A Mine of Serpents (1949) and The Goose Cathedral (1950)—and the Kafkaesque Image of a Drawn Sword (1950).
Educated at Bedales
Bedales School
Bedales School is a co-educational independent school situated in Hampshire, in the south east of England. Founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley in reaction to the limitations of conventional Victorian schools, today the school is one of the most expensive in the UK, charging £9,985 per term for a...
(after escaping twice from a public school) and Worcester College, Oxford
Worcester College, Oxford
Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in the eighteenth century, but its predecessor on the same site had been an institution of learning since the late thirteenth century...
, Brooke's childhood revolved mostly around his principal interests of amateur botany and fireworks, in the shadow of the first World War. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps
Royal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...
during the next war, and elements of his experiences, and his love of the military life, appear in most of his later works.
Though the Orchid Trilogy strays into a typically English vein of humour, the idyllic land of his childhood and his obsession with le paradis perdu often bring in an element of intense melancholy, something developed in paranoia and isolation in The Image of a Drawn Sword.