Harry Flashman

The novel's narrator, who insists his memoirs are not about wars and battles but about himself, "Flashy" is writing early in the 20th century, in his eighties, about his many exploits. This novel, the fourth in a series of "Flashman Papers" focuses on his service as a 31-year-old captain in the British Army on reserve status when the novel opens. He is married for 14 years to 30-year-old, beautiful, adoring, shallow wife, Elspeth, by whom he has a noisy five-year old son, Harry Albert Victor Flashman ("Havvy"). Flashy repeatedly insists that anyone who has read the earlier installments will realize he is a bully, a knave, and a coward who somehow always blunders into a position to be seen as a hero. Whenever this happens, he plays the part in public, but without pride. The most important background information for this novel is that he is a bully...