Short description
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.
Long description
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.
Review
'The Flashman Papers do what all great sagas do -- winning new admirers along the way but never, ever betraying old ones. It is an immense achievement.' Sunday Telegraph 'Not so much a march as a full-blooded charge, fortified by the usual lashings of salty sex, meticulously choreographed battle scenes and hilariously spineless acts of self preservation by Flashman.' Sunday Times 'Not only are the Flashman books extremely funny, but they give meticulous care to authenticity. You can, between the guffaws, learn from them.' Washington Post 'A first-rate historical novelist' Kingsley Amis