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**richsc** · 03-29-2003, 03:55 AM

I have to break ranks this once to pay homage to the greatest literary military scoundrel of all, Field Marshal Sir Harry Flashman, VC, who showed up at the Little Big Horn in dinner jacket....from the Sioux side no less, who's fart launched the Light Brigade at Balaclava, and who was the villain of "Tom Brown's School Days". There is no Sharpe, Falco, Jack Aubrey, or anyone to touch the sniveling, boot licking, strutting, toadie who is in almost every battle that mattered in the entire 19th century, and who knew (in the Biblical sense) every woman who mattered, except for Queen Victoria (Vicky to him). 
 
If you have not read the series by George MacDonald Fraser, shame on you! Richard Campbell, Legio XX 
 
Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=richsc@romanarmytalk>RichSC</A> at: 3/29/03 4:56:03 am

03-29-2003, 10:27 AM

Yep. Schoolboy humour or not, when he almost slipped out of the saddle at the charge and farted himself back astride, I dropped the book from laughing. Gold standard. 
 
Conn

03-29-2003, 11:21 AM

Also try the MacCauslen short stories by the same author (recent collated into one volume as 'The Complete MacCauslen'), a thinly veiled autobiography of his service with the British Army just after WWII. If anything, the personal element makes them even more poignant and funny. 
 
Celer.

03-29-2003, 03:07 PM

It is the abiding dread of my life that Fraser will die before he finishes the saga of Sir Harry. When are we going to see the U.S. Civil War stories (he was decorated by both Lee and Grant). Where is the Emperor Maximillian of Mexico adventure? He was connected with the Foreign Legion, so he must have been at Camerone. Where is the book about the Boxer Rebellion, where he directed the U.S. Marine artillery and was awarded a campaign hat? Get writing, George!

rekirts · 03-29-2003, 03:22 PM

Yep, I'm really beginning to think I've missed something. 
 
This site has a list of the books and movies of GMF if you go to the chronology section, but i'm posting this section cause I thought it was funny. Guess I'm going to have to look into this Flashman character. 
 
www.pangloss.ca/flashman/London.htm 
 
Wendy

04-08-2003, 01:27 PM

As an update, I heard from GMF's editor that a new Flashman is being written at the moment. Great news for die-hard fans like myself. 
 
Conn

**richsc** · 04-08-2003, 02:31 PM

It should come as no surprise that if you search for "Tom Brown's School Days" on Amazon that you are immediately paired with "Flashman" as a companion book; actually a sequel. Must be a lot of GMF fans out there! 
 
And there actually was a real sequel, long forgotten, to TBSD. Richard Campbell, Legio XX

Muzzaguchi · 04-11-2003, 11:44 PM

Hi Rich 
 
I really hope that you and Flashman live up to the reputation that proceeds you for I have placed the entire set on Lay-by (nothing by halves and all that) So I will read number 1 and I am sure (since I have not been led astray in the other titles I have read becuase of reccomendations in this forum) I will be satisfied. Actually I gave a paper on sycophancy in Domitianic literature (Frontinus especially) and the 'Flashman example' came up (along with Trollope- who says ancient historians aren't diversified!) - sounded intriguing so I shall see. 
 
Cheers 
 
Murray

**richsc** · 04-12-2003, 10:31 AM

wow.. now I feel very responsible! I think you'll like the series, and I think it only gets better in the later books as GMF gets more comfortable with the character. Richard Campbell, Legio XX

Muzzaguchi · 04-21-2003, 09:34 AM

Hi, 
 
Just Finished Flashman vol 1 and thoroughly enjoyed myself . 
 
I look forward to reading the others and to catching up with all of you. 
 
Cheers 
 
Muzzaguchi 
 
It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay Antiquity its due reverence - Erasmus of Rotterdam 
 
'Modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one asks' - Tolstoy War and Peace Ep. ii.1

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