
Stevenson, nor Arthur Conan Doyle, nor even Alexandre Dumas, surpassed this for sheer panache and excitement. So far, I have read five of the twelve, and it seems quite obvious to me that as far as adventure stories are concerned, George Macdonald Fraser, whom we may, I think, consider the author rather than merely a scrupulous editor, was up there with the very best: not R.

Such, at least, is the conceit that informs the twelve Flashman novels. In these notes, he often corroborates Flashman’s accounts, and adds related points of historical interest at other times, he points out some inevitable errors in Flashman’s accounts – errors both of historical fact, which may be put down to Flashman’s weakening memory in his old age and also possible errors of perception: a man whose moral compass is as flawed as is Flashman’s is hardly likely, after all, to see things with the impartial eye of the scholar.

Macdonald Fraser then devoted several years of his life editing these papers, adding scholarly introductions and notes. Some time in the late 1960s, author George Macdonald Fraser came across the Flashman papers – detailed accounts of his eventful life written by Flashman in his old age, in inimitable style. And, despite all his efforts to keep out of trouble, he found himself witnessing some of the most momentous events in history, and even taking his part in them. Despite being a coward and a bully and an all-round bad egg, he was accidentally mistaken for a hero, and became famous throughout the British Empire.


After expulsion from Rugby School, he led a colourful life. While Thomas Hughes, the author, presents the novel as a fiction, Flashman was real enough. We may think that Flashman, the vicious and cowardly bully in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, was a fictional character.
