Flashman author dies
I was sorry to hear that George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman series, died this week at the age of 82.
I’ve read all the Flashman books and I had hoped there were more to come. As described neatly in The Age:
“Flashman, published in 1969, imagined Harry Flashman, the bullying schoolboy of 19th-century classic Tom Brown’s Schooldays, grown up to become a soldier in the British army. In the book and 11 sequels, the roguish Flashman fought, drank and womanised his way across the British Empire, Europe and the US, playing a pivotal role in great historical moments. A vain, cowardly rogue, Flashman nonetheless emerged from each episode covered in glory.”
He was a self-admitted lucky cad and coward. His adventures included surviving a pit of vipers in Afghanistan, a siege in India, the charge of the Light Brigade and a mad Malagasy temptress monarch, among others.
There are references in a couple of the books to Flashman being in Australia during the gold rush, so I expected a future novel to cover this period. Alas that is not to be.
I'm a 41-year-old father of four working as a newspaper editor at Mount Gambier in South Australia.
