Thomas Flashman Adventures Series

Flashman and the Seawolf introduces a new member of the Flashman family and provides an illuminating insight into life in Georgian England and the extraordinary adventures of one of Britain's least known but inspirational naval commanders. From the brothels and gambling dens of London, through political intrigues and espionage, the action moves to the Mediterranean and the real life character of Thomas Cochrane. This book covers the start of Cochrane's career including the most astounding single ship action of the Napoleonic war. Thomas Flashman provides a unique insight as danger stalks him like a persistent bailiff through a series of adventures that prove history really is stranger than fiction.

This is the second instalment in the memoirs of the Georgian Englishman Thomas Flashman, which were recently discovered on a well-known auction website. Thomas is the uncle of the notorious Victorian rogue Harry Flashman, whose memoirs have already been published, edited by George MacDonald Fraser. Thomas shares many of the family traits, particularly the ability to find himself reluctantly at the sharp end of many major events of his age. This packet of the Thomas Flashman papers takes him to territory familiar to readers of his nephew’s adventures, India, during the second Mahratta war. It also includes an illuminating visit to Paris during the Peace of Amiens in 1802. During Thomas’s time, India was more of a frontier country for the British and, as he explains, the British were very nearly driven out of much of it. The second Mahratta war saw Europeans and Indians fighting on both sides, including Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington who fought his first battles there. As you might expect Flashman is embroiled in treachery and intrigue from the outset and, despite his very best endeavours, is often in the thick of the action. He meets many of the leading characters, from British governors and generals to Mahratta warlords, fearless Rajput warriors, nomadic bandit tribes, hairy highlanders and not least a four-foot-tall former nautch dancer, who led the only Mahratta troops to leave the battlefield of Assaye in good order. Flashman gives an illuminating account with a unique perspective on both sides of the conflict. It details feats of incredible courage (not his, obviously) reckless folly and sheer good luck that were to change the future of India and the career of a general who would later win a war in Europe.

This book covers the second half of Thomas Flashman's experiences in the Peninsular War and follows on from Flashman in the Peninsular. Having lost his role as a staff officer, Flashman finds himself commanding a company in an infantry battalion. In between cuckolding his soldiers and annoying his superiors, he finds himself at the heart of the two bloodiest actions of the war. With drama and disaster in equal measure, he provides a first-hand account of not only the horror of battle but also the bloody aftermath. Hopes for a quieter life backfire horribly when he is sent behind enemy lines to help recover an important British prisoner, who also happens to be a hated rival. His adventures take him the length of Spain and all the way to Paris on one of the most audacious wartime journeys ever undertaken. With the future of the French empire briefly placed in his quaking hands, Flashman dodges lovers, angry fathers, conspirators and ministers of state in a desperate effort to keep his cowardly carcass in one piece. This extraordinary account brings together various historical events, while also giving a disturbing insight into the creation of a French literary classic!

This is the third instalment in the memoirs of the Georgian Englishman Thomas Flashman, which were recently discovered on a well-known auction website. Thomas is the uncle of the notorious Victorian rogue Harry Flashman, whose memoirs have already been published, edited by George MacDonald Fraser. Thomas shares many of the family traits, particularly the ability to find himself reluctantly at the sharp end of many major events of his age. While many people have written books and novels on the Peninsular War, Thomas Flashman’s memoirs offer a unique perspective. They include new accounts of famous battles, but also incredible incidents and characters almost forgotten by history. Flashman is revealed as the catalyst to one of the greatest royal scandals of the nineteenth century which disgraced a prince and ultimately produced one of our greatest novelists. In Spain and Portugal he witnesses catastrophic incompetence and incredible courage in equal measure. He is present at an extraordinary action where a small group of men stopped the army of a French marshal in its tracks. His flatulent horse may well have routed a Spanish regiment, while his cowardice and poltroonery certainly saved the British army from a French trap. Accompanied by Lord Byron’s dog, Flashman faces death from Polish lancers and a vengeful Spanish midget, not to mention finding time to perform a blasphemous act with the famous Maid of Zaragoza. This is an account made more astonishing as the key facts are confirmed by various historical sources

This book finds Thomas Flashman, a British army officer, landing on the shores of the United States at the worst possible moment – just when the United States has declared war with Britain! Having already endured enough with his earlier adventures, he desperately wants to go home but finds himself drawn inexorably into this new conflict. He is soon dodging musket balls, arrows and tomahawks as he desperately tries to keep his scalp intact and on his head. It is an extraordinary tale of an almost forgotten war, with inspiring leaders, incompetent commanders, a future American president, terrifying warriors (and their equally intimidating women), brave sailors, trigger-happy madams and a girl in a wet dress who could have brought a city to a standstill . Flashman plays a central role and reveals that he was responsible for the disgrace of one British general, the capture of another and for one of the biggest debacles in British military history.

This sixth packet of memoirs from the notorious Georgian rogue Thomas Flashman covers the extraordinary events that culminated in a battle just south of Brussels, near a place called Waterloo. The first six months of 1815 were a pivotal time in European history. As a result, countless books have been written by men who were there and by those who studied it afterwards. But despite this wealth of material there are still many unanswered questions including: -Why did the man who promised to bring Napoleon back in an iron cage, instead join his old commander? -Why was Wellington so convinced that the French would not attack when they did? -Why was the French emperor ill during the height of the battle, leaving its management to the hot-headed Marshal Ney? -What possessed Ney to launch a huge and disastrous cavalry charge in the middle of the battle? -Why did the British Head of Intelligence always walk with a limp after the conflict? The answer to all these questions in full or in part can be summed up in one word: Flashman. This extraordinary tale is aligned with other historical accounts of the Waterloo campaign and reveals how Flashman’s attempt to embrace the quiet diplomatic life backfires spectacularly. The memoir provides a unique insight into how Napoleon returned to power, the treachery and intrigues around his hundred day rule and how ultimately he was robbed of victory. It includes the return of old friends and enemies from both sides of the conflict and is a fitting climax to Thomas Flashman’s Napoleonic adventures.

This seventh instalment in the memoirs of the Georgian rogue Thomas Flashman reveals that, despite his suffering through the Napoleonic Wars, he did not get to enjoy a quiet retirement. Indeed, middle age finds him acting just as disgracefully as in his youth, as old friends pull him unwittingly back into the fray. He re-joins his former comrade in arms, Thomas Cochrane, in what is intended to be a peaceful and profitable sojourn in South America. Instead, he finds himself enjoying drug-fuelled orgies in Rio, trying his hand at silver smuggling and escaping earthquakes in Chile, before being reluctantly shanghaied into the Brazilian navy. Sailing with Cochrane again, he joins the admiral in what must be one of the most extraordinary periods of his already legendary career. With a crew more interested in fighting each other than the enemy, they use Cochrane’s courage, Flashman’s cunning and an outrageous bluff to carve out nothing less than an empire which will stand the test of time.

Of all the enemies that our hero has shrunk away from, there was one he feared above them all. By his own admission they gave him nightmares into his dotage. It was not the French, the Spanish, the Americans or the Mexicans. It was not even the more exotic adversaries such as the Iroquois, Mahratta or Zulus. While they could all make his guts churn anxiously, the foe that really put him off his lunch were the Ashanti. “You could not see them coming,” he complained. “They were well armed, fought with cunning and above all, there were bloody thousands of the bastards.” This eighth packet in the Thomas Flashman memoirs details his misadventures on the Gold Coast in Africa. It was a time when the British lion discovered that instead of being the king of the jungle, it was in fact a crumb on the lip of a far more ferocious beast. Our ‘hero’ is at the heart of this revelation after he is shipwrecked on that hostile shore. While waiting for passage home, he is soon embroiled in the plans of a naïve British governor who has hopelessly underestimated his foe. When he is not impersonating a missionary or chasing the local women, Flashman finds himself being trapped by enemy armies, risking execution and the worst kind of ‘dismemberment,’ not to mention escaping prisons, spies, snakes, water horses (hippopotamus) and crocodiles. It is another rip-roaring Thomas Flashman adventure, which tells the true story of an extraordinary time in Africa that is now almost entirely forgotten.

When other men might be looking forward to a well-earned retirement to enjoy their ill-gotten gains, Flashman finds himself once more facing overwhelming odds and ruthless enemies, while standing (reluctantly) shoulder to shoulder with some of America’s greatest heroes. A trip abroad to avoid a scandal at home leaves him bored and restless. They say ‘the devil makes work for idle hands’ and Lucifer surpassed himself this time as Thomas is persuaded to visit the newly independent country of Texas. Little does he realise that this fledgling state is about to face its biggest challenge – one that will threaten its very existence. Flashman joins the desperate fight of a new nation against a pitiless tyrant, who gives no quarter to those who stand against him. Drunkards, hunters, farmers, lawyers, adventurers and one English coward all come together to fight and win their liberty.

While many people have heard of the battle at Rorke’s Drift, (featured in the film Zulu) and the one at Isandlwana that preceded it, few outside of South Africa know of an earlier and equally bloody conflict. Under a tyrannical king, the Zulu nation defended its territory with ruthless efficiency against white settlers. Only a naïve English vicar, with his family and some translators are permitted to live in the king’s capital. It is into this cleric’s household that Thomas Flashman finds himself, as a most reluctant guest. Listening to sermons of peace and tolerance against a background of executions and slaughter, Thomas is soon fleeing for his life, barely a spearpoint ahead of regiments of fearsome warriors. He is to learn that there is a fate even worse than his own death before being pitched in with Boers and British settlers as they fight a cunning and relentless foe. Thomas strives for his own salvation, before discovering that chance has not finished with him yet.

This book fills in two gaps in Flashman’s career, hitherto uncovered by his memoirs. The bulk of this volume is taken up with Flashman’s adventures in what was then Prussia, but which now comprises Poland, Russia and the Baltic states. In 1806 Prussia declared war on France and in a disastrous campaign lost most of its territory. Russia was forced to come to its aid and Britain too sent observers to assess how to help. Flashman joins this mission in what should have been a safe diplomatic visit – but of course was anything but. From bloody, frozen retreats to battles in blizzards, he is soon in the thick of the action as a country fights for its very survival. Diplomatic intrigues follow and, with the aid of a Russian countess, our hero uncovers the enemy’s plans – and works to frustrate them. Also included is the short story Flashman’s Christmas, set in Paris a few months after the battle of Waterloo. As royalists conduct vindictive purges on former Bonapartists, Flashman is embroiled in a notorious eve of execution jailbreak as he is reunited with old friends to outwit old enemies.