Who else can lay claim to have been a recipient of both the Victoria Cross and the Congressional Medal of Honor, to have participated in the retreat of the British Army from Kabul in 1842, the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in 1855, the suppression of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, and Custer's 'Last Stand' on the Little Bighorn in 1876? None other than Harry Flashman who was also well known to Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, Otto von Bismarck, James Brooke, countless potentates as well as many other movers and shakers on four continents and countless islands during the 19th century. And who else can claim to have been intimate with such royal figures as Countess Lola Montez of Bavaria, Queen Ranavalonna of Madagascar, Yehonala, the future Empress Dowager of China, Jeendan, Maharani of the Punjab, and Laksmibai, Maharani of Jhansi? Again, Flashy as he refers to himself. In fact, while imprisoned during the Indian Mutiny, Flashman passed the time of his confinement by recalling the names of all the women with whom he had been intimate. They numbered over 400 and then only in his thirties. All these adventures and several others are well documented in the ten episodes of the Flashman Papers that have been released so far. Among his other adventures that have been hinted at thus far include being a facilitator of Lee's surrender at Appomattox in 1865, a participant at the Battle of Rourke's Drift in the Zulu war and the Battle of Khartoum.

From Whence Does He Cometh?
Harry Flashman entered English literature as the bully and "bad influence" in Thomas Hughes's tribute to the British public school system, Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857). In that novel he is very properly expelled from Rugby by the great Dr. Arnold. George MacDonald Fraser has been inspired to speculate about the career that might follow these disgraceful beginnings, and in this way has created not only a splendid comic character but a knowledgeable satire on the moral pretensions and hypocrisies of Victorian society. Flashman appeared in 1969 and purported to be the first installment of his shameless memoirs, covering the years between 1839 and 1842, but written many years later in his declining years. They give Flashman's own version of his expulsion from Rugby, and his subsequent entry into Lord Cardigan's 11th Light Dragoons. Parted by his inveterate cowardice from this crack regiment, he is sent to the North West Frontier and is caught up in the appalling blunders of the first Afghan War (1842). Almost all the British troops involved in that disaster perished in the retreat to India, the only survivors being a certain Dr. Brydon and, of course, Flashman who survives thanks to his genius for self preservation and his skill at intimacy.

Although he emerges from the debacle as a national hero, Harry Flashman is an admitted coward, a liar, and a cheat. His memoirs at least are disarmingly frank. Critics have pointed out that the reader warms to him, not for the least reason, because many of the historical and imaginary characters around him behave little better while paying lip-service to high Christian ideals. The novel was universally praised, both as a "highly entertaining jeu d'esprit" and for the accuracy of its historical detail, though one critic objected mildly that Flashman falls "too easily into the attitudes of a mid-twentieth-century con-man." Fraser's comments in a letter -- "he doesn't know much about nineteenth century conmen, does he?"

In first seuel, Royal Flash, the arch-cad and toady matches his wits, his talents for deceit and malice and his speed for evasion with the most brilliant of European statesmen as well as the most beautiful and unscrupulous adventuress of the era. From London gaming halls and English hunting fields he blunders his way through various Germanic dungeons, throne-rooms and boudoirs as an officer of the Horse Guards, compounding the problems arising from Bismarck efforts to annex the Danish provence of Schleiswig-Holstein to Prussia. He avoids disaster by a mixture of luck and cynical cunning in a succession of desparate escapes, disguises, amours, and (when he can't avoid them) hand-to-hand combats. Courtesans and prize-fighters, assassins and duelists, crowned heads and chambermaids crowd the pages as young Flashy scuttles nimbly from cover to cover. Royal Flash was filmed in 1975.

Flash for Freedom! takes him to Dahomey, shanghaied by his father-in-law aboard a British slave ship to pick up a cargo of Africans for transportation to the United States. Before arriving there the slaver is captured by a U.S. Navy cruiser and Flashy assumes the role of a Royal Navy undercover agent -- one of slaver's officers who had been killed in the pursuit. Posing as Lt Comber, RN, Flashy is taken to New Orleans to give evidence against the slaver's Latin-quoting skipper, Capt J.C. Spring. But realizing that his assumed-identity will be revealed if he appears in the courtroom, he flees to the presumed safety of the Basin Street bordellos where after finding succor he is persuaded to help one of the practitioners escape to the Northern states via the Underground Railroad. Adventures as strange and perilous as he had met in Afghanistan or Germany await the arch-cad as he wends his way northward and his flair for personal charm, cowardice, quickness of thought, treachery, lechery and fleetness of-foot again bring him through but only by the skin of his chattering teeth.

Flashman at the Charge involves him in the Crimean War where he accidently leads the charge of the Light Brigade, is captured by Cossacks, escapes now and then enjoying the favors of an international cast of remarkable women along the way. But before Flashy gets to the Crimea he wins his promotion from Lieutenant to Colonel because Prince Albert believes that he will be a good influence on one of Queen Victoria's German nephews who is visiting Britain. "Fraser has done a wondrous thing," Peter Andrews wrote in his review of this novel. "By making his principal character into the ultimate anti-hero, Fraser has brought back the old-fashioned English adventure novel for those of us who wouldn't ordinarily read them."

Flashman in the Great Game takes him back to India just before the outbreak of the Mutiny of the native 'seapoy' troops. But what caused the mutiny? The greased cartridge, religious fanaticism, political blundering all played their roles; but one hitherto unsuspected factor is now revealed in the furtive figure which fled across the scene. Flashman -- the fifth volume of his memoirs casts a trembling spotlight on the insurrection which was the watershed of the British Empire. For Flashy, plumbing new depths of anxious knavery in his role as secret agent extra-ordinarily saw far more of this bloody conflict than he wanted to -- Russian spies in Queen Victoria's drawing room at Balmoral, Palmerston's secret cabinet meeting, the first explosion of revolt at Meerut, the heroic defense of Cawnpore, the vital message out of Lucknow . . . how he survived his adventures and flight from Thugs and Tsarist agents, Hindu beauties and cabinet ministers still keeping his skin in tact is a mystery as remarkable as any of the previous episodes. It is as a result of these exploits that Flashy is awarded the VC and is knighted, to his surprise.

Flashman's Lady tells of his exploits in two periods -- just after his joust with the Germans in 1842 and later in 1845. In the first he accepts an invitation from his old enemy, Tom Brown, to join in a friendly cricket match. Little did he know then that he was letting himself in for the most desperate game of his young life -- a deadly struggle that would see him scampering from the hallowed wicket of Lord's to the jungle lairs of Borneo pirates, from a Newgate hanging to the torture pits of Madagascar, from Chinatown dens to slavery in the palace of a mad black queen. If he had known what lay ahead, Flashman would never have taken up cricket quite so seriously. In this sixth edition of his Papers, the great coward-philosopher scuttles through yet again, pausing only to take cover, curse his luck, and footnote the true history of his time with happy malice and unsparing accuracy. The footnotes, of course, are those of Fraser who tells us that he has confined himself to that task "to satisfy myself of the accuracy of Flashman's account of historical events so far as these can be checked." He has also supplied illuminating appendices.

Then twenty six years later, he and Elizabeth find themselves in the US once again as guests of General Phil Sheridan at his wedding in Chicago in 1876. It is in the introduction to this episode that we learn of his service to the Union forces during the War between the States where he meets Lt Col George Custer. Before he knows it he is with Custer on an expedition to intercept the Sioux nation who have strayed from their reservation. Well, strayed is hardly the word for it; these guys are out for blood. Without revealing too much of the plot, Flashy witnesses most of the battle on the Little Bighorn from the Sioux encampment where, with his customary luck, he had been taken as a prisoner. But as the battle moved away from the encampment he is drawn into the 7th Cavalry's defensive perimeter during the final stages. The details of the battle are vividly related amplified by maps and Fraser's copious footnotes and appendices. Have you tumbled to the thought that perhaps there is much humor in these Flashman stories? Well, you would be right particularly if you are well-informed about life in 19th century. Of course, this episode doesn't lack for the typical ration of scoundrels and dusky maidens, along with gunfighters and gamblers and other eccentrics.

Flashman and the Dragon takes place in China during the Taiping Rebellion when the British and French governments were trying to convince the Emperor's mandarins that they should accept Lord Elgin as an ambassador. The blurb on the back cover quotes Abraham Lincoln as saying -- "When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." It is not clear when he uttered these words because when he and Flashy first met, Abe was a Congressman who just happened to be on the river boat that Flashy was fleeing northward with up the Ohio River. But more likely it was after he been awarded the CMH. Trusting Flashman was not always the wisest policy. Unfortunately, in China of 1860, a lot of people did -- the English vicar's daughter with her cargo of contraband; Lord Elgin in searching for an intelligence chief; the Emperor's ravishing concubine who sought a champion in her struggle for power; and Szu Zhan, the female bandit colossus, as practiced in the arts of love as she was in the arts of war. They were not to know that behind his reputation for valor, old Flashy was a base coward and charlatan. They took him at face value. And he took them, for all he could, while China writhed through the bloodiest civil war in history, and the British and French armies hacked their way to the heart of the Forbidden City. Again Fraser's footnotes in appendices should convince the reader that in spite of his moral failings, Flashman tells it like it really was.

Flashman and the Mountain of Light takes him back to 1845 and the Sikh War that erupted in that year. With the mighty Sikh Khalsa, the finest army ever seen in Asia, poised to invade India and sweep Britain's ill-guarded empire into the sea, every able-bodied man was needed to defend the frontier -- and one, at least, had his answer ready when the call of duty came -- "I'll swim in blood first!" One can hardly blame him though since he was actually in Madagascar at the time just after having been rescued from the mad queen's embrace. Alas, though, for poor Lt Flashman there was no avoiding the terrors of secret service in the debauched and intrigue ridden Court of the Punjab, the attentions of the beautiful, nymphamaniac Maharani (not that he minded that part of the job at all), the horrors of its torture chambers or the baleful influence of the Mountain of Light -- the Koh-in-Noor diamond in all its original magnificence.

In the tenth episode of the series -- Flashman and the Angel of the Lord -- our anti hero has somehow become connected with John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia and his attempt to begin freeing the slaves of Virginai and points south. This was the occasion when Flashy first meets Col Robert E. Lee, the commander of the US Army forces that put down the rebellion. This takes place in the period just after his participation in the Indian Mutiny and just before he became involved in his service in China. How that man did get around! But less obvious are the events that most of us have never heard about. For example, if only he gotten on with his dinner and ignored the handkerchief dropped by the flirtatious hussy in a Calcutta hotel . . . well, American history might have been different. Lincoln might never entered the White House; an elderly farmer might not have been hanged in his bedroom slippers; a disasterous civil war might have been avoided and Flashman himself may have avoided one of the most hair-raising adventures of his mis-spent life.

Mr American is Mark Franklin who came from the American West to Edwardian England with two long-barreled .44s in his baggage and a fortune of silver in the bank. Where he had got it and what he was looking for no one could guess, although they wondered at Scotland Yard, in City offices, in the glittering theatreland of the West End, in the highest circles of Society (even King Edward was puzzled) and the humble pub of Castle Lancing. Tall, dark and dangerous , soft-spoken and alone, with London at his feet and a dark shadowy past, he was a mystery to all of them, rustics and royalty, squires and suffragettes, the women who loved him and the men who feared and hated him. He came from the far frontier of another world, yet he was no means a stranger . . . even old General Flashman, who knew his men and mischief better than most, never guessed the whole truth about 'Mr American'.

Candlemass Road, is what Fraser calls "a fictional supplement" of the themes he introduced in The Steel Bonnets. To the young Lady Margaret Dacre, raised in the security of Queen Elizabeth's court, the Scottish border was a land of blood and brutal violence, where raid and murder were commonplace, and her broad inheritance lay at the mercy of outlaw riders and feuding tribes of England's last frontier. Beyond the law's protection, alone but for her house servants and an elderly priest, she could wait helpless in her lonely manor, or somehow find the means to fight the terror approaching from the northern night -- and hope for that "knock on the nether door". From two forgotten incidents in the State Papers, the author has woven a tale of vivid reality of life and sudden death on the reiver's frontier of four hundred years ago, when lawlessness was "ther custom of the country", and the only safety lay in the lance and sword and the will to use them. It is a story told with the meticulous attention to historical detail, and grasp of character, dialog, suspense and action which made the Flashman series world-wide best sellers.