Ranking of THE FLASHMAN PAPERS

Below is my ranking of THE FLASHMAN PAPERS, the series of novels and short stories written by the late George MacDonald Fraser about a 19th century British Army officer named Harry Flashman. The novels and stories were published between 1969 and 2005: 


RANKING OF THE FLASHMAN PAPERS



1. "FLASHMAN AND THE REDSKINS" (1982) - Serving as an immediate follow-up to "FLASH FOR FREEDOM!", this 1982 novel depicted Harry Flashman's experiences in the Old West when he joined a wagon train in 1849 and became an unwilling witness to the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. Probably my favorite in the series.





2. "FLASHMAN AND THE DRAGON" (1985) - Harry Flashman's experiences during the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) and Lord Elgin's March to Peking during the Second Opium War in 1860 are depicted in this 1985 novel.





3. "FLASHMAN IN THE GREAT GAME" (1975) - Serving as a follow-up to "FLASHMAN AT THE CHARGE", this 1975 novel depicted Flashman's experiences during the Sepoy Rebellion (1857-1858) in India and a reunion with a deadly former enemy.





4. "FLASHMAN AT THE CHARGE" (1973) - Harry Flashman's experiences during the first year of the Crimean War (1854-1856) and with Kokand freedom fighters in Central Asia between 1854 and 1855 are depicted in this novel.





5. "FLASH FOR FREEDOM!" (1971) - Fleeing the country from a scandal not of his making, Harry Flashman finds himself aboard a slave ship and receives a first hand look at the trans-Atlantic slave trade and American slavery in the late 1840s.





6. "FLASHMAN'S LADY" (1977) - When a former pirate-turned-businessman from the East Indies become obsessed with Flashman's wife, Elspeth, and kidnaps her during a trip to Singapore; the cowardly hero's pursuit leads to him fighting Borneo pirates with the legendary James Brooke and becoming a slave of the notorious Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar during the early 1840s.





7. "FLASHMAN" (1969) - This 1969 novel served as an introduction to Fraser's literary series and his infamous main character, Harry Flashman. After being expelled from Rugby School, Flashman joins the British Army and eventually participates in the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842).





8. "ROYAL FLASH" (1970) - This 1970 novel turned out to be a spoof of the famous Anthony Hope novel, "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA". Set during the Revolutions of 1848, Flashman finds himself "recruited" by the Prussian politician Otto von Bismarck to impersonate a Danish prince set to marry the ruler of a German duchy.





9. "FLASHMAN AND THE MOUNTAIN OF LIGHT" (1990) - Flashman's experiences during the First Sikh War in the Punjab is depicted in this 1990 novel.





10. "FLASHMAN AND THE ANGEL OF THE LORD" (1994) - After being shanghaied by an old enemy in South Africa, Flashman finds himself back in the United States, where he unwillingly gets caught up in the John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859.





11. "FLASHMAN AND THE TIGER" (1999) - Instead of a novel, this 1999 book is a collection of three stories that depicted Flashman's experiences in aborting an assassination attempt on Emperor Franz-Josef of Austria; his and wife Elspeth's participation in the infamous Tranby Croft Affair; and his troubling encounter with a former acquaintance from the Zulu War.





12. "FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH" (2005) - In this final novel written by Fraser, Flashman finds himself caught up in Great Britain's 1868 military expedition against King Tewodros II of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).