These three funny, strange and moving autobiographical novels: THE MILITARY ORCHID; A MINE OF SERPENTS and THE GOOSE CATHEDRAL, collectively called The Orchid Trilogy are among the great 'hidden masterpieces' of English fiction. Obsessed by his strange twin passions for orchids and for fireworks, the narrator conjures up a dazzling portrait-both rhapsodic and fantastical-of England at war and peace in the 20th century. It is one of those handful of books that haunt the rest of the lives of those who read it.