Rogue, rake, cad, cur, blackguard, brute—you know all those great old-fashioned words for a jerk that nobody uses anymore? Well, bring them all back for Sir Harry Paget Flashman, the Victorian era’s most loveable scoundrel. A bawdy, jolly tale that is also a great historical fiction, Flashman is a rousing, rollicking introduction to Harry Flashman’s “memoirs” and readers won’t fail to be charmed by Flashman’s candor as he gleefully sets the record straight and confesses all his past indiscretions, fabrications, and outright lies. In his first adventure, Flashman is out for little more than free drinks and fast women. A seduction-gone-wrong saddles him with a one-way ticket to Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Now all Flashy just wants to save his ass, but he keeps getting flung right into the middle of every major historical event of the time, culminating in the military’s 1841 defeat during Britain’s Afghanistan campaign. But Flashman is always an opportunist, making time to hone his skills as a lover, fighter, imposter, and coward. The character of Flashman is first heard of in a real Victorian novel—he’s a minor character, a schoolboy bully, in Thomas Hughes’ 1857 novel Tom Brown’s Schooldays. Over a hundred years later, George MacDonald Fraser resurrected Flashman for a twelve-book series that celebrates the escapades of this dastardly clever antihero in all his glory. Book 2: Royal Flash

posted Jun 12, 2009 at 11:20AM

 Add a Comment