The Wild Orchids of Britain. Drawings from the living plants by Gavin Bone. Additional drawings by Muirhead and Stephen Bone.

Bookseller Notes

The first of the author's two botanical works, here in the signed, deluxe edition - though flowers are a constant motif in his fiction, not least, of course, the 'Orchid Trilogy'.Brooke attended Worcester College, Oxford, but was sent down after only a year and existed with little purpose until the Second World War, in which he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps. After the War, he wrote prolifically.Brooke and Gavin Bone - fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, who died in 1942 and to whose memory the book is dedicated - coincided at Bedales School (Bone was a few years the author's senior), where this work had its first seeds in their common love of these flowers, and specifically in Bone's drawing of the Lizard Orchid included here; it lay dormant until 1938, and was then waylaid by Bone's 'untimely death' until after the Second World War, with other artists from his talented family aiding its completion.