Harry Paget Flashman

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"Flashman" redirects here. For the Japanese television series, see Choushinsei Flashman. For the Mega Man enemy, see Robot Master.
Cover of Flashman (1990s printing)
Cover of Flashman (1990s printing)

Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC KCB KCIE (5 May 1822 – 1915) is a fictional character created by George MacDonald Fraser, but based on the character "Flashman" originally created by the author Thomas Hughes in his semi-autobiographical work Tom Brown's Schooldays, first published in 1857. The book is set at Rugby School, where Flashman is a notorious bully who persecutes its eponymous hero, Tom Brown. In Hughes' book, Flashman is finally expelled for drunkenness.

Twentieth century author George MacDonald Fraser had the idea of writing a series of memoirs of the cowardly, bullying Flashman, portraying him as an antihero who experiences many 19th century wars and adventures. Flashman — a self-described and unapologetic 'cad'— frequently betrays acquaintances, runs from danger or hides cowering in fear, yet he arrives at the end of each volume with medals, the praise of the mighty, and the love of one or more beautiful and enthusiastic women. Ultimately, Flashman becomes one of the most notable and honoured figures of the era.

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[edit] Origins of the character

In Tom Brown's Schooldays he is called only Flashman or Flashy; Fraser gives him his forenames, a lifespan from 1822 to 1915, and a birth date of 5 May.

In the novel Flashman, Flashman mentions that his mother was a relation of the socially prominent Paget family, but that the Flashman family were descended from a grandfather who'd made his fortune in America trading in rum, slaves, and "probably piracy". His father is a dissolute ex-member of Parliament, who is "not quite the thing in society". As Flashman says, quoting Grenville, "the coarse streak showed through, generation after generation, like dung beneath a rosebush." Flashman's tastes in recreational activities, etc., reflect his father's heritage, but--as we are encouraged to suspect--his ability to pass himself off as a member of the upper crust and his arrant cowardice are traits inherited from his aristocratic mother.

[edit] Style and layout of the stories

The series is a classic use of false documents. The books describe the discovery of the nonagenarian General Flashman's memoirs in a Leicestershire saleroom in 1965. Posing as the editor of the papers, Fraser produces a series of historical novels that give a largely picaresque (or arguably cynical) description of the history of the British and American history during the 19th century. Dozens of major and minor characters from history occur in the books, often described in an inglorious or hypocritical guise. Fictional characters, such as Sherlock Holmes, can also be found in the tales, complementing Flashman and sundry figures from Tom Brown's Schooldays and Tom Brown at Oxford.

Fraser's research is considerable. The books are heavily annotated, with end notes and appendices, as Fraser (in accordance with the fictional existence of the memoirs) attempts to "confirm" (and in some cases "correct") the elderly Flashman's recollections of events. In many cases, the footnotes serve to aid the reader by indicating that a particularly outlandish character really existed or that an unlikely event actually occurred.

In outline there are some similarities to the Thomas Berger novel (and movie) Little Big Man, in which a 121-year old man recounts his numerous adventures and escapades in the Old West. Mark Twain also wrote a short story, Luck, about a highly decorated English general in the Crimean War who was a total idiot, but whose misadventures always ended in success.

The half-scholarly tone has occasionally led to misunderstandings; when first released in the United States, ten of 34 reviews published took it to be a real, albeit obscure, memoir. Several of these were written by academics—to the delight of The New York Times, which published a selection of the more trusting reviews.[1]

For the purposes of American publication, Fraser created a fictional entry of the 1909 edition of Who's Who. This lists Flashman's laurels as: VC, KCB, KCIE; Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur; Congressional Medal of Honor; San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth, 4th Class; and a lot of heartfelt thanks. In addition, he is listed as a major in the Union Army during the American Civil War in 1862, and a colonel in the Confederate Army the following year. (It is referred to in the narrative of Flashman and the Redskins that Flash did indeed fight on both sides during the American Civil War, changing sides half-way through, though all conversations with Ulysses S. Grant in that book suggest that this was a cover for espionage work.)


[edit] Flashman the man

Harry Paget Flashman describes himself as a large man, six feet and two inches (1.88 metres) tall and close to 13 stone (about 180 pounds or 82 kg). In Flashman and the Tiger, he mentions that one of his grandchildren has black hair and eyes, resembling him in his younger years; his dark colouring frequently enables him to pass (in disguise) for a Pathan. He describes his only two talents as a gift for horsemanship and languages (but sometimes makes it up to four by adding fornication and cricket). He also had the means to impress important people he met, usually with excessive toadying. His other gift was his success with women. The list of his sexual conquests (see below) is long (apparently up to 478 at about halfway through his life (whilst languishing in a Gwalior dungeon during Flashman and the Great Game he counts them) and includes several famous women. Despite his natural abilities and imposing figure, Flashman was a coward, running from the danger he constantly found himself in. He was also a bully to his (supposed) inferiors and found joy in creating trouble for people he did not like.

After his expulsion from Rugby for drunkenness (from the original novel by Hughes), Flashman looked for a way to an easy life. He joined the military, picking the fashionable 11th Regiment of Light Dragoons commanded by Lord Cardigan, later of Light Brigade fame, because the 11th had just returned from India and were not likely to go back soon. Flashman threw himself into the social life that the 11th offered and became a leading light of Canterbury society.

A duel over a lady of questionable morals led to his being stationed in Scotland, where he met and deflowered his future wife, Elspeth Morrison. Blackmailed by her family into a shotgun wedding, their marriage caused his forced resignation from the 11th Lights, and he was sent East to make a career. This he did in Afghanistan, unwittingly becoming a hero by being known as the defender and surviving officer of Piper's Fort. When found by the relieving troops, he lay wrapped in the flag and surrounded by dead enemy troops. The fact that he had been trying to surrender the colours rather than defend them was lost to history.

Needless to say, Flashman arrived at the Fort by accident, tried to avoid all suggestions of involvement in the conflict, had to be bullied into holding a musket by his sergeant and had been 'rumbled' for a complete coward. Happily for him, all inconvenient witnesses perished in the battle. This seems to happen in many of the stories.

This incident set the tone for Flashman's life. He spent the next seventy-five years meeting the most famous people of his time and trying to shirk his duty in the most historically important conflicts and events of the 19th century—while being hailed as a hero throughout. Flashman died in 1915.

Despite his self-confessed nature as a coward, Flashman was a dab hand at combat, when forced to it. Almost every book contains one or more incidents where Flashman must fight for his life. He does so quite efficiently, though desperately.

[edit] Flashman stories

The following extracts (in publication order) from the Flashman Papers have been published:

Flashman also plays a small part in Fraser's novel Mr American (1980). His father, Harry Buckley Flashman, has a similar cameo appearance in Black Ajax (1997). At one point, it is also mentioned that a member of the Flashman family was present at the Battle of Culloden, 1746. Fraser has confirmed that Flashman died in 1915 but the circumstances of his death have never been related.

In early 2006 Fraser confirmed that he planned to write another installment of the Flashman Papers. According to Fraser, he had chosen three possible subjects to write about, though what these are he was not willing to say. At the Oxford Literary festival in 2006, when asked if he ever planned to document Flashman's adventures in Australia, Fraser replied that "Australia is on Flashman's CV, but I don't think I will get around to writing about it."[citation needed] He estimated that it took him roughly three to five months to research and write a Flashman novel.

Fraser died of cancer on 2 January 2008.[2]

[edit] Flashman's ladies

Flashman's stories are dominated by his numerous amorous encounters. In Flashman in the Great Game while in prison he compiles a mental list of all the women he has had up to that point in his life, "not counting return engagements" and he places the figure at 478. Several of them are prominent historical personages. The women he gets involved with are not window dressing against the backdrop of Flashy's life, but pivotal characters in the unpredictable twists and turns of the books.

[edit] Adaptations

A script for a Flashman film adaptation was written by Frank Muir in 1969, to star John Alderton, and is mentioned in his autobiography A Kentish Lad. A film version of Royal Flash was released in 1975. It was directed by Richard Lester and starred Malcolm McDowell as Flashman, Oliver Reed as Otto von Bismarck and Alan Bates as Rudi von Sternberg. It received moderate acclaim, though most fans of the series avoid it, as Lester chose to focus on bawdy buffoonery and slapstick and gave short shrift to the historical context of the story.

Fraser said that further film adaptations of the Flashman books have not been made because he "will not let anyone else have control of the script... and that simply does not happen in Hollywood." He also pointed to a lack of a suitable British actor to portray Flashman; Errol Flynn was always his favourite for the role: "It wasn't just his looks and his style. He had that shifty quality." However, the suggestion of Daniel Day-Lewis struck a chord with him and he says that although "He's probably getting on a bit," he "might make a Flashman... He's big, he's got presence and he's got style."[3]

As of January 2007, Celtic Films indicate on their website that they have a series of Flashman TV films in development. Picture Palace have announced they are currently developing Flashman at the Charge for TV[1] and that the script has been prepared by George Macdonald Fraser himself. Both companies took an extensive role in developing Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe (TV series). Recent rumours[who?] suggest that James Purefoy, (Mark Antony in the recent BBC / HBO series Rome), has provisionally accepted an offer to play Flashman. This is still unconfirmed as of June 2007.

Playwright Patrick Rayner wrote the radio play adaptation Flashman at the Charge which was broadcast in 2005[4] and again in 2008 on BBC Radio 4.[5]

[edit] Homages

  • American military historian Raymond M. Saunders created an homage to the Flashman persona in a series of Fenwick Travers novels, set among the US military adventures in the Indian wars, Spanish-American war in Cuba, Boxer Rebellion in China, piracy and Muslim terrorism in the Philippines, and the creation of the Panama Canal. These novels never received the popularity or acclaim of the original Flashman.
  • Peter Bowen's four-book series based on the exploits of Luther Sage "Yellowstone" Kelly is clearly influenced by Flashman. Basing his series loosely on the career of an actual frontier scout, Bowen presents Kelly as a womanizer, heavy drinker, and something of a coward. Like Flashman, Kelly is a victim of his own legend, and is often dragged into exploits against his will by actual historical personages such as U. S. Grant, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Theodore Roosevelt. Eventually he is forced to behave heroically, at times even nobly. Although the novels have a decided comic edge, there is an element of dark tragedy in them, often related to the despoiling of frontiers and the subjugation of native peoples. The books include Yellowstone Kelly: Gentleman and Scout (1987), Kelly Blue (1991), Imperial Kelly (1992) and Kelly and The Three-Toed Horse (2001).
  • Eric Nicol's Dickens of the Mounted, a fictional biography of Francis Jeffrey Dickens, the real life third son of novelist Charles Dickens who joined the North West Mounted Police in 1874, has an alternate and less than flattering take on Flashman—the book itself is something of an homage to the Flashman series.
  • In comics, writer John Ostrander took Flashman as his model for his portrayal of the cowardly villain Captain Boomerang in the Suicide Squad series. In the letters page to the last issue in the series (66), Ostrander acknowledges this influence directly. Noticeably absent in the Captain Boomerang character is Flashman's success with the ladies however.

[edit] Historical characters referenced in the Flashman novels

The Flashman books are littered with references to a vast number of notable historical figures. Although many have but a brief mention, some feature prominently and are portrayed "warts-and-all". They include the following:

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

[edit] References

  1. ^ Gen. Sir Harry Flashman And Aide Con the Experts, by Alden Whitman, The New York Times, July 29, 1969
  2. ^ "Author of Flashman novels dies", The Daily Telegraph, 2008-01-02. Retrieved on 2008-01-02. 
  3. ^ Flash man by Saul David, The Daily Telegraph, 16 April 2006
  4. ^ radio plays,bbc,drama review,DIVERSITY WEBSITE,bbc,classic. ukonline.co.uk. Retrieved on 2008-02-02.
  5. ^ BBC - Radio 4 - Daily Schedule. BBC (2008-02-02). Retrieved on 2008-02-02.
  6. ^ Mitchell, Sandy (2007-04-30). Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium. The Black Library. ISBN 978-1844164660. 

[edit] External links

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Flashman novels