A coward, a Cad; chronically unfaithful to his beautiful and devoted wife, to whom he is hopeless and ardently attached. A paragon of Victorian manhood; a lying adulterer who cheats at billiards. A bully. A cheat, thief and play actor. Unwilling hero in the biggest battles and events of the British Empire. Sir Harry Flashman; VC; KCB; KCIE; the hero of George Macdonald Fraser's Flashman Papers.

The Flashman Papers, approximately 1822 to 1915, detail the start of the Victorian era, the Indian Empire, the battle of Little Big Horn, the Zulu war, the cricket fields of Lord's, Manchu China, and the First Afghan War, among others sagas and events.

"Hughes got it wrong. In one important detail.
You will have read, in Tom Brown, how I was
expelled from Rugby School for drunkenness,which is true enough, but when Hughes alleges that this was the result of my deliberately pouring beer on top of gin-punch, he is in error. I know better than to mix my drinks, even at seventeen."

And so it was, with this paragraph, that Harry Flashman began the first installment of the Flashman Papers which sees the *fag-roasting rotter from Tom Brown's School Days commence his military career as a reluctant secret agent in Afghanistan.

Expelled from Rugby for drunkenness, and none too welcome at home after seducing his father's mistress, the young Flash embarks on a military career with Lord Cardigan's Hussars. En route to Afghanistan, our hero hones his skills as a soldier, duelist, imposter, coward and amorist (mastering all 97 ways of Hindu love-making during a brief sojourn in Calcutta), before being pressed into reluctant service as a secret agent.
His Afghan adventures culminate in a starring role in that great historic disaster, the Retreat from Kabul.

*Fag -English Public School speak (younger pupil- lower year required to do menial chores) not to be confused with any other connotation.

* Flashman (1969) - the First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839-1842 - Retreat from Kabul, Last Stand at Gandamak and Siege of Jalalabad.


*Royal Flash (1970) - a pastiche of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda set during the European Revolutions of 1848. The story features Lola Montez and Otto von Bismarck as major characters, and fictionalizes elements of the Schleswig-Holstein Question, 1843, 1847 and 1848. The episode is presented as if Hope fictionalized the "true" story he heard from Flashman.



* Flash for Freedom! (1971) - the pre-Civil War slave trade and the Underground Railroad in the United States, 1848 and 1849.* Flashman at the Charge (1973) - the Crimean War's Charge of the Light Brigade and Tuva, 1854.* Flashman in the Great Game (1975) - the Indian Mutiny, the Rani of Jhansi, Lord Palmerston, Thomas Henry Kavanagh 1856-1858. At times, Flashman behaves heroically in this novel and is awarded the Victoria Cross and a Knighthood but the publishing of Tom Brown's Schooldays enrages and humiliates him although the ultimate effects of the novel on his reputation are small.* Flashman's Lady (1977) - Encounters Tom Brown again; scores the first "hat trick" in Cricket 1843, meets James Brooke in Borneo

and Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar 1843-1845. Parts are written as if drawn from the writings of his wife, Elspeth Rennie Morrison Flashman, and edited by her slightly puritanical and much offended sister, Grizel Morrison de Rothschild.* Flashman and the Redskins (1982) - the American West: the Forty-niners 1849-1850, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1875-1876.* Flashman and the Dragon (1985) - China, Second Opium War and Taiping Rebellion, 1860.* Flashman and the Mountain of Light (1990) - India: the First Anglo-Sikh War, 1845 and 1846. Capture of the Koh-i-Noor diamond.* Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (1994) - United States: John Brown and the Harper's Ferry Raid, 1858 and 1859.



* Flashman and the Tiger (1999) incorporating: The Road to Charing Cross - the Congress of Berlin and the Emperor Franz Josef, 1877-1878.





Royal Baccarat Scandal, 1890 and 1891. The defence of Rorke's Drift, 1879 and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story The Adventure of the Empty House 1894, in which Flashman meets the villainous Colonel Sebastian "Tiger Jack" Moran.* Flashman on the March (2005) - Escape from Mexico at the end of the French occupation, invasion of Abyssinia, 1868 and rescue of British hostages.

So what is the magic of the Flashman Papers? Harry Flashman was the creation of Thomas Hughes - the Author of "Tom Brown's Schooldays". But Harry's subsequent adventures are all down to George Macdonald Fraser (pictured right). The twelve books all purport to be the memoirs of General Sir Harry Flashman, VC, discovered in a sales-room at Ashby-de-la-Zouch and entrusted to Fraser for editing.

This device allowed Fraser to pilot Flashman through a picaresque series of encounters with some of the choicest episodes of Victorian history.

Whilst Harry is of course a fictional character, the settings of his exploits are actual events, meticulously researched and cleverly interwoven giving the impression that Harry was unquestionably there.

So successfully did Fraser bring off the conceit that some critics, especially in America, believed the memoirs to be authentic. A debate followed in the New York Times, and Flashman's concocted curriculum vitae even found its way into works of biographical reference.

Such is the accuracy of the historical data, many a reader has said that they have been significantly educated whilst at the same time thoroughly entertained by the situations and Harry's unique sense of humour. If only they had taught history like this in school!

George Macdonald Fraser died on the 2nd January, 2008.