George MacDonald Fraser OBE FRSL (2 April 1925 – 2 January 2008) was a Scottish author who wrote historical novels, non-fiction books and several screenplays. Fraser was born to Scottish parents in Carlisle, England on 2 April 1925.[1] His father was a doctor and his mother a nurse. It was his father who passed on to Fraser his love of reading, and a passion for his Scottish heritage. Fraser was educated at Carlisle Grammar School and Glasgow Academy;[3] he later described himself as a poor student due to "sheer laziness".[2] This meant that he was unable to follow his father's wishes and study medicine. In 1966, Fraser got the idea to turn Flashman, a fictional coward and bully originally created by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's School Days (1857), into a hero, and he wrote a novel around the character's exploits. The book proved popular and led to a series of further novels, presented as packets of memoirs written by the nonagenarian Flashman looking back on his days as a hero of the British Army during the 19th century. The series is notable for the accuracy of its historical settings and praise it received from critics. For example, P.G. Wodehouse said of Flashman, "If ever there was a time when I felt that 'watcher-of-the-skies-when-a-new-planet' stuff, it was when I read the first Flashman."[6]
Fraser also fictionalised his post-war military experience as the adventures of the rather unassuming "Dand" MacNeill in a Scottish Highland regiment. This series of short stories is noted for the strong and strange characters surrounding McNeill, including an aged and prototypical colonel, a perfect-soldier regimental sergeant-major, a Wodehousian adjutant, an active and dedicated pipe sergeant, a die-hard Algerian revolutionary, various blackguards and spivs, and, most memorably, Private John McAuslan, the dirtiest soldier in the world. Featuring games of golf, scrapes, and run-ins with the police both military and civil, the transfer of the die-hard to the French, and McAuslan's various disasters, these works form a picture of the British army in the period immediately after World War .
My Opinion: I had forgotten how wonderfully entertaining the whole Flashman series was until I came across a referenece to him in another novel. I will go back and begin re-reading his books for the pure fun and enjoymrent they bring. Do yourself a favor and try his work. The Flashman series constitute Fraser's major works. There are 12 books in the series:
Bibliography:
Flashman (1969)
Royal Flash (1970)
Flash for Freedom! (1971)
Flashman at the Charge (1973)
Flashman in the Great Game (1975)
Flashman's Lady (1977)
Flashman and the Redskins (1982)
Flashman and the Dragon (1985)
Flashman and the Tiger (1999)
Flashman on the March (2005) X
If you want to know more about this author, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_MacDonald_Fraser