Product Description

The tenth installment in The Flashman Papers finds Captain Harry Flashman of Her Majesty's Secret Service in the antebellum South, where the irrepressible, globe-trotting Victorian becomes the target of blackmailing beauties. Reprint. NYT. PW.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41654 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780452274402
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Roving British Army colonel Sir Harry Flashman, roisterous scoundrel and witty cynic, was a reluctant hero in exploits ranging from the Crimean War (Flashman at the Charge) to China's Taiping Rebellion (Flashman and the Dragon) in nine previous volumes of Fraser's Flashman Papers. In this latest installment, a mesmerizing mix of high adventure, outrageous humor and audacious drama, the cowardly Flashman is kidnapped in Cape Town, South Africa, and sails to Baltimore before being conscripted into abolitionist John Brown's doomed, bloody 1859 raid on a federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry, Va. U.S. government agents enlist Flashman as a spy to dissuade or forcibly prevent Brown from carrying out the raid, fearing that it might trigger civil war. Meanwhile, a band of hooded white supremacists abduct Flashman and order him to abet John Brown's attack, which they believe will unite the South and divide the North. Combining wild imagination, sardonic commentary on American mores and meticulous historical research, Fraser tells a masterful historical tale and presents a magnificent portrait of John Brown as a fearless, autocratic, murderous iron-willed zealot-"a fanatic, yes; a man driven by one burning idea... but never a madman."
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Flashman, the magnificent, debauched English soldier of fortune and misfortune, turns agent provocateur for a U.S. government on the brink of the American Civil War in this tenth volume of the Flashman Papers. With a grace equal to his character's smooth talking when under the gun of a cuckolded husband, Fraser does some intricate maneuvering to transport his hero from the Far East to the New World. Shanghaied to America by a vengeful acquaintance, Flashman plans to return to his beloved English wife to celebrate his newly acclaimed knighthood, but his past misadventures and enemies keep catching up with him. He becomes entangled with John Brown, under pressure from the Underground Railroad, then, with the KKK, and, finally, with the U.S. government as represented by Pinkerton. For Flashman, mingling with the famous (or soon to be famous) is nothing new, and the name-dropping throughout lends vivacity to a riotous plunge through history. The terrified Flashman is a reluctant eyewitness to the events at Harper's Ferry, and once again, his escape afterwards owes more to his sexual charm than his soldiering skills. Denise Perry Donavin

Customer Reviews

A teasing return to some old themes...
This is not the first Flashman book to deal with a setting in America or the issues of slavery and the ante-bellum South. In fact, it's the third. Flash for Freedom and Flashman and the Redskins both touch on the subject. And if Mr. Fraser lives long enough, there are at least two others he has hinted at which will cover other aspects of the periods 1850-53 and 1861-65. However, its highly doubtful that the ingenious Mr. Fraser will live long enough (he's in his 70's) to "edit" the much awaited Civil War volume. Therefore, we Flashmaniacs must likely content ourselves with this fine, but hopefully not final, chapter. The novel brings back several old characters from Flash for Freedom, including the delightfully decadent Mrs. Mandeville. It is much much tighter in its focus than any of its predecessors, covering just a few months in 1859. However it is also more practiced in its character development and insights into the period. While this tenth Flashman novel (eleventh if you count the bland Mr. American) may only be for true afficionados, I think it's one of the best. So while Flashy developed some moral fiber in Mountain of Light, in Angel he shows some introspection. Once you read one, you'll read them all anyway, so this review is entirely unnecessary.

a first-time Flashman reader
Flashman and the Angel of the Lord was my introduction to writer George Fraiser and "his" character, Harry Flashman. I was impressed and pleased. Impressed with Frasier's scholarship (the fictional Flashman's interactions with real historic persons and events is accurate, as his extensive endnotes demonstrate). Pleased with the irreverant, wholly unconventional and most certainly un-PC character of Harry Flashman.

In the Angel of the Lord, Flashman - a scandalous character "resurrected" from the 19th century novel Tom Brown's Schooldays and a self-described "bully, poltroon, cad, turncoat, lecher and toady" - finds himself aiding John Brown in his raid at Harper's Ferry. Conspiracies abound with several factions enlisting the "assistance" of Flashman to either foil the attempt or help pull it off. The misadventures of Harry Flashman as he navigates the intrigue and double-dealing combined with the Fraiser's rapier-like wit and irreverant style had me riveted to the story line while laughing out loud. I will certainly read the remainder of the "Flashman Chronicles" and I recommend this one highly.

A great series
For those of you who aren't familiar with his exploits, please allow me to introduce you to Sir Harry Flashman, literature's most unrepentant scoundrel. Flashman (whom some may remember as the bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays), is the hero of twelve (as of 2007) novels by the literate and witty George MacDonald Fraser. The setting for these novels is the Nineteenth Century, a time filled with countless skirmishes and disasters, with Flashman seemingly involved in most of them. Fraser, in an explanatory note, says it best:

"From the day of his expulsion from Rugby School in the late 1830s, Flashman the man fulfilled the disgraceful promise of Flashman the boy; toadying bounder and bully matured into the cowardly profligate and scoundrel, who, by chance and shameless opportunism, became one of the most renowned heroes of the Victorian age, unwilling leader of the Light Brigade, fleeing survivor of Afghanistan and Little Big Horn, tarnished paladin of Crimea and the Mutiny, and cringing chronicler of many another conflict, disaster, and intrigue in which he bore an inglorious but seldom unprofitable part."

Flashman's memoirs were purportedly discovered in an attic in Leicestershire in 1965, half a century after his death at the age of 93. Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, the tenth packet of the "Flashman Papers" to have been edited and published by Fraser, chronicles Sir Harry's second trip to America. The last time around, he was sold as a slave, worked as a plantation foreman, met a young congressman named Abraham Lincoln and smuggled an escaped slave via the Underground Railroad. This time, through misadventure, coincidence, and the consequences of his own cowardice and womanizing, he is forced into acting as John Brown's right hand man, training Brown's followers for their disastrous 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry, the kickoff to the Civil War. Flashman, incidentally, served on both sides during that conflict, the details of which I can only hope will be revealed in a forthcoming volume.

In this age of political correctness, Flashman's bawdy adventures are a breath of fresh air. These books deserve every ounce of the praise they've received over the years---the only drawback of being a Flash-fan is enduring the long intervals between installments. Each novel stands by itself, but if you read one, you'll want to read them all. Sample one and join the ranks of rabid Flashmaniacs all around the world.