The Flashman Papers

The Flashman Papers is a series of novels and short stories written by George MacDonald Fraser, the first of which was published in 1969. The books centre on the exploits of the fictional protagonist Harry Flashman, a cowardly British soldier, rake and cad who is placed in a series of real historical incidents between 1839 and 1894. While the incidents and much of the detail in the novels have a factual background, Flashman’s actions in the stories are either fictional, or Fraser uses the actions of unidentified individuals and assigns them to Flashman.

Flashman originated as a character in the 1857 novel by Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s School Days; Hughes’ version of the character is a bully at Rugby School who is expelled for drunkenness. The character was developed by Fraser, and appeared in the 1969 novel Flashman. Fraser went on to write eleven novels and one collection of short stories featuring the character. During the course of the series, Flashman goes from his expulsion from school into the army. Although he is a coward who tries to run away from any danger, he is involved in many famous military episodes from the 19th century, often taking actions that influence subsequent events, such as the part his flatulence played in the Charge of the Light Brigade,^[a]As a result of drinking inferior champagne after recovering from dysentery, Flashman suffers from flatulence. The noise of his eruptions startles his horse to such an extent that it bolts towards the Russian lines, speeding up the British advance.^[1] or being the person who probably shot George Armstrong Custer.

When circumstances run against him and he is forced to fight, Flashman often does so bravely and capably. Despite his cowardice and his attempts to flee, he becomes a decorated war hero and rises to the rank of brigadier-general. He also meets people who were either notable at the time – such as Benjamin Disraeli and the Duke of Wellington – or became well-known after Flashman met them – such as Abraham Lincoln. Flashman either has, or tries to have, sex with most of the female characters; by the end of the ninth book he estimates that he has had sex with 480 women.

The publication sequence of the books differs from the fictional chronology, with the timeframe of some books overlapping. One novel, Flashman and the Redskins, is in two parts: part one takes place in 1849–1850, and the second covers 1875–1876. Although the main series of stories finishes in 1894, Flashman lives on until 1915 and appears in his late 80s in another Fraser novel, Mr American.

Context

The series consists of twelve historical fiction books written by the journalist, author and screenwriter George MacDonald Fraser, that were published between 1969 and 2005. The series consists of eleven novels and one collection of short stories, spanning from 1839 to 1894; they are the memoirs of the fictional character General Sir Harry Paget Flashman, VC, KCB, KCIE. Although Flashman is fictional, the settings and history of the events, and the people with whom he interacts are largely based around real historical events and individuals, although three contain elements of other novels.^[2][b]Royal Flash took elements from Anthony Hope’s 1894 novel The Prisoner of Zenda, in what The Guardian described as “a double literary conceit”;^[2] Flash for Freedom ends with Flashman and a slave girl avoiding their pursuers by escaping over a frozen river, an event Flashman claims was later used in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin;^[3] and the short story “Flashman and the Tiger”, from the book of the same name, intertwines a Flashman story into the Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of the Empty House”.^[4] Flashman first appeared in the 1857 semi-autobiographical novel Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes as a bully at Rugby School, who persecutes Tom Brown and is expelled for drunkenness: Fraser’s series of novels starts with Flashman’s expulsion from school. A fictional explanatory note at the start of Flashman sets the context, and explains that the memoirs had been found in an auction house in Ashby, Leicestershire and had subsequently come into the possession of Fraser, who has acted in the role of editor.^[5] Fraser also included pages of notes and appendices at the end of each volume, providing the factual background for Flashman’s exploits.

Fraser was working as a journalist on The Glasgow Herald when he wrote the first novel, Flashman. Writing in the evenings after work, he took 90 hours to finish the story.^[6][7] After the book was published, he left journalism and took up writing novels.^[6] When a break from writing was forced upon him by a broken arm, he abandoned the book until his wife read the manuscript and urged him to finish. He did not find a publisher for the novel for two years, until Barrie & Jenkins published it in 1969.^[7] When the novel was published in the USA the same year, of the 34 reviews read by Alden Whitman of The New York Times, ten of them considered the book to be a genuine autobiography.^[8] Fraser researched each novel at Trinity College, Dublin.^[9] From their first publication, the books were a commercial success,^[10] and new editions appeared on the best-sellers’ lists.^[11]

Flashman

Flashman is from a semi-aristocratic background; he recounted that his great-grandfather “made a fortune in America out of slaves and rum, and piracy, too, I shouldn’t wonder”.^[12] His father was “a dissolute former MP, living beyond the bounds of respectable society, and … his mother [was] born of the self-promoting Paget family”.^[13] Despite joining the army after being expelled from school, Flashman is a self-confessed coward with a false reputation for bravery earned at the expense of others, and despite his trying to avoid danger at all costs.^[14] He is also “a scoundrel, a drunk, a liar, a cheat [and] a braggart”,^[6] who was described by Fraser as “an unrepentant old cad” whose only positive features are “humour and shameless honesty as a memorialist”.^[15]

Flashman is 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) tall, weighs 13 stone (180 lb; 83 kg) (12½ stone in the first book, fourteen stone in the last), has broad shoulders and is attractive to women.^[c]In the first novel, Flashman describes himself as six feet tall and weighing 12 and a half stone:^[17] in Flashman and the Angel of the Lord he says he is six feet, two inches tall.^[18] He was forced into marriage in the first book, after he “caddishly deflowered” Elspeth Morrison,^[2] the daughter of a wealthy Scottish textile manufacturer with whom he had been billeted.^[13] Despite being married – and the fact he deeply loves his wife – Flashman is “a compulsive womaniser”^[19] who has bedded 480 women by the tenth book in the series, which was set in 1859;^[20] Elspeth is also probably unfaithful to him on several occasions.^[13] Flashman himself notes that he has three “prime talents, for horses, languages, and fornication”;^[21] he was described by the master-at-arms of the 11th Hussars as a strong swordsman,^[22] skilled with a lance, particularly at tent pegging.^[23] When it is necessary for him to control his fear, he will perform bravely, although is more adept at saving his own skin at the expense of others.^[19]

In the course of the series Flashman is promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, and decorated numerous times by different countries. While the books cover some of his awards – such as being given the Victoria Cross for his actions during the sieges of Cawnpore and Lucknow^[24] – some stories are left unexplained, including how and why he served on both sides of the American Civil War and how he won the Medal of Honor.^[25][d]Fraser had no intention of describing Flashman’s role in the American Civil War. In a 2002 interview he said, “to me, the American Civil War is a colossal bore. It was a rotten war, it’s been done to death and I’m not terribly interested. An American wrote to me urging me to write it, saying it had to be the high point of Flashman’s career. I wrote back saying: ‘Son, it’s a foreign sideshow. The Crimea, the Indian Mutiny, these were the important things in Flashman’s life. Your civil war? He was so disinterested that he fought on both sides’.”^[26]

During his travels Flashman meets people who took part in 19th-century events, including Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, Otto von Bismarck, Oscar Wilde and Florence Nightingale, and he is involved as a participant in some of the century’s most notable events, including the Indian Rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion, the charge of the Light Brigade, the Siege of Khartoum, John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.^[27]

Flashman died in 1915, but the details are unknown.^[28]

Works