Flashman At The Charge

“Hilariously funny.”—The New York Times Book Review “Great dirty fun!”—Grand Rapids Press “The most entertaining anti-hero in a long time… Moves from one ribald and deliciously corrupt episode to the next… Wonderful and scandalous.”—Publishers Weekly The fourth volume of memoirs in which Harry Flashman confronts destiny with Lord Cardigan and the Light Brigade. Part of the Flashman series, comprising Flashman, Royal Flash, and Flash for Freedom, among others, which explores the successful though scandalous later career of the bully in Tom Brown's School Days.

“A jolly read.”—The Wall Street Journal The tenth installment in The Flashman Papers finds Captain Harry Flashman of Her Majesty's Secret Service in the antebellum South, where the irrepressible, globe-trotting Victorian becomes the target of blackmailing beauties. Evading danger, bedding women, and profiting from every opportunity, Flashman once again weasels his way into history, this time in John Brown’s raid of Harper’s Ferry, just before the Civil War. As a result of Flashy’s letching, lying, cheating, and stealing on land, on sea, and on the rails, not only did John Brown become a martyr, Lincoln became president, and the nation plunged into a bloodbath.

It’s 1868 and Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., arch-cad, amorist, cold-headed soldier, and reluctant hero, is back! Fleeing a chain of vengeful pursuers that includes Mexican bandits, the French Foreign Legion, and the relatives of an infatuated Austrian beauty, Flashy is desperate for somewhere to take cover. So desperate, in fact, that he embarks on a perilous secret intelligence-gathering mission to help free a group of Britons being held captive by a tyrannical Abyssinian king. Along the way, of course, are nightmare castles, brigands, massacres, rebellions, orgies, and the loveliest and most lethal women in Africa, all of which will test the limits of the great bounder’s talents for knavery, amorous intrigue, and survival. Flashman on the March—the twelfth book in George MacDonald Fraser’s ever-beloved, always scandalous Flashman Papers series--is Flashman and Fraser at their best.

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. Flashman, soldier, duellist, lover, imposter, coward, cad and hero, triumphs in this first instalment of The Flashman Papers. His adventures as the reluctant secret agent in Afghanistan and his entry into the exclusive company of Lord Cardigan's Hussars culminate in his foulest hour - his part in the historic disaster of the Retreat from Kabul. This is the story of a blackguard who enjoyed villainy for its own sake. Shameless, exciting and funny, Flashman's deplorable odyssey is observed with the cynical eye of a scoundrel who was honest only in reporting what he saw. He makes all other black sheep look respectable grey.

A game of cards leads Flashman from the jungle death-house of Dahomey to the slave state of Mississippi as he dabbles in the slave trade in Volume III of the "Flashman Papers". When Flashman was inveigled into a game of pontoon with Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck, he was making an unconscious choice about his own future - would it lie in the House of Commons or the West African slave trade? Was there, for that matter, very much difference? Once again Flashman's charm, cowardice, treachery, lechery and fleetness of foot see the lovable rogue triumph by the skin of his chattering teeth.

This ninth volume of The Flashman Papers finds that history’s most unheroic hero, Sir Harry Flashman, is back in India, where his saga began. This time, our hero is sent by Her Majesty's Secret Service to spy on the corrupt court of Lahore, on India's Northwest Frontier. Flashy deals with a ravishing maharini and her equally sex-hungry maid, joins forces with an American adventurer with royal ambitions, and attempts to win the brightest jewel in England’s imperial crown at the cost of something he will never miss—namely, his honor.

“Hilariously funny.”—The New York Times Book Review One of literature's most delightful rakes is back in another tale of rollicking adventure and tantalizing seduction. The plucky Flashman's latest escapades are sure to entertain devotees as well as attract new aficionados.