The 12 books featuring Flashman feature some of the major engagements of the 19th century: the slave trade in Flash for Freedom (1971) the charge of the Light Brigade in Flashman at the Charge (1973) the Indian mutiny in Flashman in the Great Game (1975) Custer's last stand in Flashman and the Redskins (1982) the opium wars in Flashman and the Dragon (1985) and the raid by the abolitionist John Brown, on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (1994).

Ten pages of notes again told the casual reader that he was getting much true historical gen among the comic cuts.īismarck and Schleswig-Holstein aside, Fraser's real interests were the British empire, the American civil war and the wild west. The book also featured Lola Montez, the fabulous beauty of the age, and her lover Ludwig I of Bavaria. Flashy gives the reader the true story, involving Bismarck and the Schleswig-Holstein affair. The idea was that Hope had used Flashman's adventures to invent the tale of Rudolf Rassendyll, the Englishman who was the double of the king of Ruritania. This was a double literary conceit, with Flashman, a character from one Victorian novel, getting involved in the plot of another, Anthony Hope's 1894 classic The Prisoner of Zenda.

It was turned down a dozen times before Herbert Jenkins, the small independent house best known for publishing PG Wodehouse, brought it out.įraser followed it the next year with Royal Flash.

It is hard now, with Flashman recognised as an international comic classic, to believe that Fraser had difficulty getting the book published.

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