Flashman
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.Expelled from Rugby for drunkenness, and none too welcome at home after seducing his father’s mistress, the young Flashman embarks on a military career with Lord Cardigan’s Hussars.En route to Afghanistan, our hero hones his skills as a soldier, duellist, 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.
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HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Herbert Jenkins Ltd 1969
Reissued by Collins 1982
Reprinted by Collins Harvill 1986
Copyright © George MacDonald Fraser 1969
How Did I Get the Idea of Flashman? © The Beneficiaries of the Literary Estate of George MacDonald Fraser 2015
Map © John Gilkes 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover illustration © Gino DâAchille
George MacDonald Fraser asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical events and figures, are the work of the authorâs imagination.
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Source ISBN: 9780006511250
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007325689
Version: 2017-08-15
For Kath
One fine summer evening Flashman had been regaling himself on gin-punch, at Brownsover; and, having exceeded his usual limits, started home uproarious. He fell in with a friend or two coming back from bathing, proposed a glass of beer, to which they assented, the weather being hot, and they thirsty souls, and unaware of the quantity of drink which Flashman had already on board. The short result was, that Flashy became beastly drunk. They tried to get him along, but couldnât; so they chartered a hurdle and two men to carry him. One of the masters came upon them, and they naturally enough fled. The flight of the rest excited the masterâs suspicions, and the good angel of the fags incited him to examine the freight, and, after examination, to convoy the hurdle himself up to the School-house; and the Doctor, who had long had his eye on Flashman, arranged for his withdrawal next morning.
â THOMAS HUGHES, Tom Brownâs Schooldays.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
How Did I Get the Idea of Flashman?
Explanatory Note
Notes
Glossary
About the Author
Also by George MacDonald Fraser
The FLASHMAN Papers: In chronological order
The FLASHMAN Papers: In order of publication
About the Publisher
The following piece was found in the authorâs study in 2013 by the Estate of George MacDonald Fraser.
âHow did you get the idea of Flashman?â and âWhen are we going to get his U.S. Civil War memoirs?â are questions which I have ducked more often than I can count. To the second, my invariable response is âOh, one of these daysâ. Followed, when the inquirer is an impatient American, by the gentle reminder that to an old British soldier like Flashman the unpleasantness between the States is not quite the most important event of the nineteenth century, but rather a sideshow compared to the Mutiny or Crimea. Before they can get indignant I add hastily that his Civil War itinerary is already mapped out; this is the only way of preventing them from telling me what it ought to be.
To the question, how did I get the idea, I simply reply that I donât know. Who ever knows? Anthony Hope conceived The Prisoner of Zenda on a walk from Westminster to the Temple, but I doubt if he could have said, after the calendar month it took him to write the book, what triggered the idea. In my case, Flashman came thundering out of the mists of forty years living and dreaming, and while I can list the ingredients that went to his making, heaven only knows how and when they combined.
One thing is sure: the Flashman Papers would never have been written if my fellow clansman Hugh Fraser, Lord Allander, had confirmed me as editor of the Glasgow Herald in 1966. But he didnât, the canny little bandit, and I wonât say he was wrong. I wouldnât have lasted in the job, for Iâd been trained in a journalistic school where editors were gods, and in three months as acting chief my attitude to management, front office, and directors had been that of a seigneur to his serfs â I had even put Fraserâs entry to the House of Lords on an inside page, assuring him that it was not for the
