Flashman. Flash for Freedom! Flashman in the Great Game: George Fraser

Three of George MacDonald Fraser’s hilarious novels in which that irrepressible rogue Harry Paget Flashman, self-confessed scoundrel, liar, cheat, thief, coward – ‘and, oh yes, a toady’ – recounts an almost incredible life-story. Romping his way through decades of nineteenth-century history in a swashbuckling series of military and amorous adventures, the bully from Tom Brown’s Schooldays seldom fails to comes out on top. In Flashman the youthful hero, newly expelled from Rugby School and armed with a commission in the 11th Dragoons, beds and reluctantly weds the beautiful Elspeth and even more reluctantly takes part in the first Anglo-Afghan War, honing a remarkable talent for self-preservation. Flash for Freedom! finds him crewing on an African slave ship called the Balliol College, hiding in a New Orleans whorehouse, and fortuitously running into rising young American politician Abraham Lincoln. Flashman and the Great Game returns him to India and the world of Kim, where he spies for the British government, makes love to a ravishing but ruthless maharani and – despite spectacular acts of spinelessness – not only survives the bloodbath of the Sepoy Mutiny but emerges with a Victoria Cross and a knighthood.

George MacDonald Fraser is a master of comedy and an unrivalled storyteller whose craft is matched only by his impeccable historical research.