The Flashman Papers

12 primary works

Flashman

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published April 1969

Coward, scoundrel, lover and cheat, but there is no better man to go into the jungle with. Join Flashman in his adventures as he survives fearful ordeals and outlandish perils across the four corners of the world.

Can a man be all bad? When Harry Flashman's adventures as the reluctant secret agent in Afghanistan lead him to join the exclusive company of Lord Cardigan's Hussars and play a part in the disastrous Retreat from Kabul, it culminates in the rascal's finest - and most dishonest - turn.

Royal Flash

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published 4 June 1971

Flash is in the clutches of Otto Von Bismark – he must you all his charm and skill to escape!

In this volume of The Flashman Papers, Flashman, the arch-cad and toady, matches his wits, his talents for deceit and malice, and above all his speed in evasion against the most brilliant European statesman and against the most beauiful and unscrupulous adventuress of the era.

From London gaming-halls and English hunting-fields to European dungeons and throne-rooms, he is involved in a desperate succession of escapes, disguises, amours and (when he cannot avoid them) hand-to-hand combats.

All the while, the destiny of a continent rests on his broad and failing shoulders.

Flashman's Lady

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published 27 October 1977

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. When our hero Flashman accepts an invitation from his old enemy, Tom Brown of Rugby, to join in a friendly cricket match, he does not suspect that he is letting himself in for the most desperate game of his scandalous career. What follows is a deadly struggle that sees 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, and from Chinatown's vice dens to slavery in the palace of 'the female Caligula' herself, Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar. Had he known what lay ahead, Flashman would never have taken up cricket seriously.

Flashman and the Mountain of Light

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published 4 October 1990

Coward, scoundrel, lover and cheat, but there is no better man to go into the jungle with. Join Flashman in his adventures as he survives fearful ordeals and outlandish perils across the four corners of the world.

The British Empire needs a man to satisfy insatiable lust and indulge in ungentlemanly acts - fortunately it has Harry Flashman. And with the mighty Sikh army poised to invade India, Flashman must go back into secret service and this time contend with the intrigues of the Court of Punjab.

Flash for Freedom!

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published 6 October 1972

Coward, scoundrel, lover and cheat, but there is no better man to go into the jungle with. Join Flashman in his adventures as he survives fearful ordeals and outlandish perils across the four corners of the world.

When Flashman was inveigled into a game of pontoon with Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck, he was making an unconscious choice about his own future – would it lie in the House of Commons or the West African slave trade? Was there, for that matter, very much difference?

Once again Flashman’s charm, cowardice, treachery, lechery and fleetness of foot see the lovable rogue triumph by the skin of his chattering teeth.

Flashman and the Redskins

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published June 1982

“Hilariously funny.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Great dirty fun!”—Grand Rapids Press
 
“The most entertaining anti-hero in a long time… Moves from one ribald and deliciously corrupt episode to the next… Wonderful and scandalous.”—Publishers Weekly

The seventh volume of the "Flashman Papers" records the arch-cad's adventures in America during Gold Rush of 1849 and the Battle of Bighorn in 1876, and his acquaintance with famous Indian chiefs, American soldiers, frontiersmen and statesmen.

Flashman at the Charge

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published 6 September 1973

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. Celebrated Victorian bounder, cad, and lecher, Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., returns to play his (reluctant) part in the charge of the Light Brigade in this of the critically acclaimed Flashman Papers. As the British cavalry prepared to launch themselves against the Russian guns at Balaclava, Harry Flashman was petrified. But the Crimea was only the beginning: beyond lay the snowbound wastes of the great Russian slave empire, torture and death, headlong escapes from relentless enemies, savage tribal hordes to the right of him, passionate females to the left of him...Then, finally, that unknown but desperate war on the roof of the world, when India was the prize, and there was nothing to stop the armed might of Imperial Russia but the wavering sabre and terrified ingenuity of old Flashman himself.

Flashman in the Great Game

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published 2 October 1975

The story of what happened to Flashman, the caddish bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays, after he was expelled in drunken disgrace from Rugby school in the late 1830s. The author has written several books about Flashman, and books of short stories, including The General Danced at Dawn.

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published 20 October 1994

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. If only Flashman had got on with his dinner and ignored the handkerchief dropped by a flirtatious hussy in a Calcutta hotel ...Well, American history would have been different, a disastrous civil war might have been avoided, and Flashman himself would have been spared one of the most hair-raising adventures of his misspent life. If only ...But, alas, the arch-rotter of the Victorian age could never resist the lure of a pretty foot. This latest extract of the Flashman Papers soon finds Flashman careering towards the little Virginian town of Harper's Ferry, where John Brown and his gang of rugged fanatics were to fire the first shot in the great war against slavery.

Flashman and the Dragon

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published 31 October 1985

George MacDonald Fraser's famous Flashman series appearing for the first time in B-format with an exciting new series style, ready to please his legions of old fans and attract armies of new ones. The Flashman Papers 1860 Volume Eight 'When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman' Abraham Lincoln Unfortunately, in China in 1860, a lot of people did: the English vicar's daughter with her cargo of opium; Lord Elgin in search of an intelligence chief; the Emperor's ravishing concubine, seeking a champion in her struggles for power; and Szu-Zhan, the female bandit colossus, as practised in the arts of love as in the arts of war. They were not to know that behind his Victoria Cross, Flash Harry was a base coward and a charlatan. They took him at face value. And he took them, for all he could, while China seethed through the bloodiest civil war in history and the British and French armies hacked their way to the heart of the Forbidden City...

Flashman on the March

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published 1 January 1989

Celebrated Victorian bounder, cad, and lecher, Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., returns to play his (reluctant) part in the Abyssinian War of 1868 in the long-awaited twelfth installment of the critically acclaimed Flashman Papers. Many have marvelled at General Napier's daring 1868 expedition through the treacherous peaks and bottomless chasms of Abyssinia to rescue a small group of British citizens held captive by the mad tyrant Emperor Theodore. But the vital role of Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., in the success of this campaign has hitherto gone unrecorded. Flashman's undeserved reputation for heroism renders him the British Army's candidate of choice when it comes to skulking behind enemy lines in Ali Baba attire. After all, who but the great amorist could contemplate navigating a land populated by hostile tribes and the lovliest (and most savage) women in Africa, from leather-clad nymphs with a penchant for torture to de-ballocking Amazons and a voluptuous barbarian queen with a reputation for throwing disobliging guests to her pet lions?

Flashman and the Tiger

by George MacDonald Fraser

Published 18 October 1999

The long-awaited new Flashman novel! Flash Harry is back! The first new Flashman novel since Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, this is the long-awaited new instalment of the Flashman Papers. When Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., the celebrated Victorian soldier, scoundrel, amorist and self-confessed poltroon's memoirs first came to light thirty years ago, the world was finally illuminated about what became of the celebrated cowardly bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays. Now, in addition to the other famous adventures of Flash Harry contained in the Flashman Papers, come three new episodes in the career of this eminent if disreputable adventurer. The title piece touches on two of the most spectacular military actions of the century and sees Flashman pitted against one of the greatest villains of the day, and observing, with his usual jaundiced eye, two of its most famous heroes. As always with George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman's adventures are related with verve, dash and meticulous historical detail.