Harry Paget Flashman - Homages

Homages

• In 2012 Norlights published SCOUNDREL! The Secret Memoirs of General James Wilkinson by Keith Thompson, to mostly positive reviews. The book was advertised as "The American Flashman", and purports to be the memoirs of real-life scoundrel James Wilkinson, who, the author claims, could have been Flashman's role-model. The author had written a Flashman screenplay and two audio adaptations, had corresponded with George MacDonald Fraser, and the novel is written very much in the Flashman style.

• Writer Keith Laidler gave the Flashman story a new twist in The Carton Chronicles by revealing that Flashman is the natural son of Sydney Carton, hero of the Charles Dickens classic, A Tale of Two Cities. Laidler has Sydney Carton changing his mind at the foot of the Guillotine, escaping the axe and making a wayward and amorous progress through the terrors of the French Revolution, during which time he spies for both the British and French, causes Danton's death, shoots Robespierre, and reminisces on a liaison among the hayricks at the 'Leicestershire pile' of a married noblewoman, who subsequently gave birth to a boychild - Flashman - on 5 May 1822.

• American military historian Raymond M. Saunders created an homage to the Flashman persona in a series of Fenwick Travers novels, set among the US military adventures in the Indian wars, Spanish-American war in Cuba, Boxer Rebellion in China, piracy and Muslim rebellion in the Philippines, and the creation of the Panama Canal. These novels never received the popularity or acclaim of the original Flashman.

• Peter Bowen's four-book series based on the exploits of Luther Sage "Yellowstone" Kelly is clearly influenced by Flashman. Basing his series loosely on the career of an actual frontier scout, Bowen presents Kelly as a womanizer, heavy drinker, and something of a coward. Like Flashman, Kelly is a victim of his own legend, and is often dragged into exploits against his will by actual historical personages such as U. S. Grant, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Theodore Roosevelt. Eventually he is forced to behave heroically, at times even nobly. Although the novels have a decided comic edge, there is an element of dark tragedy in them, often related to the despoiling of frontiers and the subjugation of native peoples. The books include Yellowstone Kelly: Gentleman and Scout (1987), Kelly Blue (1991), Imperial Kelly (1992) and Kelly and The Three-Toed Horse (2001).

• Sandy Mitchell's Warhammer 40,000 character Commissar Ciaphas Cain is partially inspired by Flashman.

• Eric Nicol's Dickens of the Mounted, a fictional biography of Francis Jeffrey Dickens, the real life third son of novelist Charles Dickens who joined the North West Mounted Police in 1874, has an alternate and less than flattering take on Flashman—the book itself is something of an homage to the Flashman series.

• Adrienne Mayor's The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press 2010), p 420 note 29, dispels the rumour that Harry Paget Flashman had discovered the "true grave" of Mithradates VI of Pontus while in the Crimea 1854-55.

• In comics, writer John Ostrander took Flashman as his model for his portrayal of the cowardly villain Captain Boomerang in the Suicide Squad series. In the letters page to the last issue in the series (66), Ostrander acknowledges this influence directly. Flashman's success with the ladies is noticeably lacking in the Captain Boomerang character.

• Flashman is briefly mentioned as being a dishonourable officer in Kim Newman's crossover novel The Bloody Red Baron.

• Flashman's portrait (unnamed, but with unmistakable background and characteristics) hangs in the home of the protagonist of The Peshawar Lancers, an alternate history novel by S. M. Stirling: the family claims to have had an ancestor who held Piper's Fort, as Flashman did; the protagonist claims his sole talents are for horsemanship and languages and has an Afghan in his service named "Ibrahim Khan" (cf. Ilderim Khan); late in the book, he plays with Elias the Jew on a "black jade chess set" matching the description of the one Flashman stole from the Summer Palace in Flashman and the Dragon; the book's chief antagonist is named Ignatieff. Another allusion to Flashman by Stirling occurs in his short story "The Charge of Lee's Brigade", which appeared in the alternate-history anthology Alternate Generals (1998, ed. by Harry Turtledove). Here, Sir Robert E. Lee is a British general in the Crimean War who orders an officer, obviously Flashman (Cherrypicker trousers, rides like a Comanche in battle), to take part in a better-planned Charge of the Light Brigade. Flashman dies in the attack, demonstrating some courage despite what Lee perceives only as nervousness. So, in this version Flashman again ends up a hero. But—as he himself would have been quick to point out—he is a dead hero.

• Terry Pratchett is a fan of the Flashman series and the Discworld character Rincewind is an inveterate coward with a talent for languages who is always running away from danger, but nevertheless through circumstance emerges with the appearance of an unlikely hero, for which reason he is then selected for further dangerous enterprises. In this he strongly resembles Flashman, although he is totally dissimilar in most other aspects. The Discworld novel Pyramids has a character named Fliemoe, the bully at the Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild school, who is a parody of the original version of Flashman from Tom Brown's Schooldays (including "toasting" new boys). In the Assassins' Guild Yearbook and Diary, Fliemoe is described as having grown up to be "an unbelievable liar and an unsuccessful bully". His name is a play on that of Flashman's crony Speedicut - both 'Speedicut' and 'Flymo' are brand names of British lawn mowers.

• In Bernard Cornwell's novel about 9th-century England during the reign of Alfred The Great, The Pale Horseman - which is dedicated to George MacDonald Fraser - the character of Prince Æthelwold (who actually existed, was Alfred's younger nephew and rightful heir to the throne of Wessex) is described as tall, handsome, looking like a warrior king, but also addicted to fornication and drink, duplicitous, amoral and a cowardly shirker in a fight, usually trying to get as far from the bloodshed as possible. Æthelwold is also a brilliant actor when it suits him. In spite of being aware of these faults the main protagonist, Uhtred of Bebbanbergh, finds him likable and good company and saves his skin more than once.

• An editorial piece in the 14th May 2011 edition of The Guardian newspaper on the subject of British Prime Minister David Cameron being labelled a 'Flashman' was given a Harry Flashman by-line and was written in the style of Flashman's narrative.