“When danger called, he did not hesitate. He ran like hell!
– George MacDonald Fraser
Harry Flashman, a fictional character expelled from Rugby for drunkenness in the 1857 novel Tom Brown’s Schooldays, was “rediscovered” in a cache of manuscripts following his death in 1915. The papers describe his career in the British military, from the First Afghan War to the Crimean War, the Sepoy Mutiny, Opium War, Taiping Rebellion and also as a drug smuggler, slave trader, cad, coward and cheat.
Despite his flaws, Flashy provides a refreshingly honest account of the incredible events he lived through and his part in them. He was often quick to point out that others were better men than him, and that he undeservedly profited from their actions. Many of the characters in the book were historical people and author George MacDonald Fraser uses footnotes to explain their nonfictional roles within the context of Flashman’s adventures.
The initial 1969 novel by Fraser was simply titled: Flashman. It outlines Flashman’s origins and his debut on the world age at the tender age of 18. Despite his age, or perhaps because of it, Flashman has an infinite to get himself in and out of trouble almost as frequently as he hops in and out of women’s beds just before their husbands arrive home.
Flashman describes Flashman’s first adventure, in Afghanistan, during the 1830s and his ultimate gaining of his undeserved reputation as a hero of Victorian Britian. All that follows in the next 11 novels flows from that first chance success and sets up Flashman as a cad and rascal who fornicates and flees his way to fame and fortune.
This is my favourite book series. If you are looking for some fun escapism in a historically accurate setting, I couldn’t recommend Flashman more.
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