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    Flashman and the Dragon
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    Flashman and the Dragon
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    Flashman and the Dragon
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    Flashman and the Dragon

    Written by George MacDonald Fraser

    Narrated by Toby Stephens

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown’s schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents – horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all.

    ‘When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman’ Abraham Lincoln

    In China in 1860, a lot of people mistakenly put their trust in Flashman: the English vicar’s daughter with her cargo of opium; Lord Elgin in search of an intelligence chief; the Emperor’s ravishing concubine, seeking a champion in her struggles for power; and Szu-Zhan, the female bandit colossus, as practised in the arts of love as in the arts of war.

    They were not to know that behind his Victoria Cross, Harry Flashman was a base coward and a charlatan. They took him at face value. And he took them, for all he could, while China seethed through the bloodiest civil war in history and the British and French armies hacked their way to the heart of the Forbidden City…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 19, 2012
    ISBN9780007505616
    Unavailable
    Flashman and the Dragon
    Author

    George MacDonald Fraser

    The author of the famous ‘Flashman Papers’ and the ‘Private McAuslan’ stories, George MacDonald Fraser has worked on newspapers in Britain and Canada. In addition to his novels he has also written numeous films, most notably ‘The Three Musketeers’, ‘The Four Musketeers’, and the James Bond film, ‘Octopussy’. George Macdonald Fraser died in January 2008 at the age of 82.

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    Reviews for Flashman and the Dragon

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    • 3/5
      I had a lot of fun with this book, perhaps because I'm not that into nineteenth century China. It's a fine example of the nineteenth century Englishman re-imaged by a skilled entertainer. read it twice.
    • 4/5
      Flashman in China; interesting for giving a serious defense of the decision to loot and destroy the Summer Palace (as an appropriate punishment for torturing to death British captives --it was felt this wold hurt the Chinese more than simply executing the Chjinese officials who had ordeed the killings); it also has an encounter with the imperial concubine who would live to become the Dowager Empress "Old Buddha" Yehonala
    • 4/5
      Necessary disclaimer: I am a huge fan of the Flashman series and George Macdonald Fraser (check out his McAuslan in the Rough). I've now read eight of the Flashman books (in chronological order 1-4, 7-8, 10 & 12). Nonetheless, I struggled to fully enjoy Flashman and the Dragon - in large part because of its questionable historical accuracy. Having narrowly escaped personal disaster whilst running 'opium' to Canton, Harry Flashman finds himself unhappily engaged in the British service on a couple of errands as an intelligence officer. First, Harry sails up to Nanking where he meets the leader of the Taiping Rebellion, a Chinese gentleman claiming to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Along the way he manages a vigorous romp or two with Triad bandit leader Szu-zhan. After another miraculous escape, Harry heads north with Lord Elgin and the closing chapter of the Second Opium War. Flashy again manages to get himself captured. This time he's imprisoned in the Forbidden City where the Lady Yehonala (better known as the Dragon Lady or Dowager Empress Ci Xi) makes a nocturnal visit - just to have a peek at the barbarian - with predictable results. Harry escapes one final time and arrives back in 'Pekin' in time to witness the final negotiations to end the war and then the release of Harry Parkes as well as the discovery of a number of murdered British prisoners. Elgin decides to burn down the imperial Summer Palace as payback. All well and good for a typical Flashman tale, but I found myself distracted by the grotesque way in which the book portrays the Chinese and the Manchu. This distraction came not not only from Flashman's 'papers, but also to the end notes. I expect Harry to express broadly, if cynical, pro-British Empire 19th century views, but expect a little more intellectual honesty from Fraser. The Chinese and Manchu are presented without exception - either singly or in combination - as devious, deceitful, sexual deviants, weak, opium-addled, and immune to normal human feelings of honor and shame. While the story does hit many of the historical highlights, the record is so grossly distorted that the reader will be forgiven for not recognizing that the Second Opium War was started by the British on a pretext in order to open yet more Chinese ports to more foreign trade, including the importation of opium, and otherwise extend its influence. The burning of the Summer Palace is presented as an act of British restraint. The reader would never guess that the propriety of this act was hotly disputed between Gladstone and Palmserton and derided by Victor Hugo (not to mention the Chinese and Manchu reaction). Lady Yehonala is falsely portrayed as a wanton sex- and opium-fiend. According to the end notes, Fraser based his story in part on the thoroughly discredited forger and con man Edmund Backhouse. See Hugh Trevor-Roper's Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse (History & Politics) and Sterling Seagrave's Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China (published after Flashman). Learning history from Harry Flashman should be undertaken with great care. Perhaps the better approach is to avoid taking the history too seriously and read them for the pro-imperial but humorous tales of the delightfully detestable Flashy. Flashman and the Dragon is best read as an entertaining period piece reflecting the prejudices of an earlier era.
    • 5/5
      The recent death of George McDonald Fraser has brought a close (maybe permanent, maybe not?) to this delightful series of books. I have had the pleasure of following this series every since the release of the first book back in the sixties. The Flashman novels combine history (including substantial endnotes) with sex, action, adventure and the secret pleasure of enjoying the exploits of one of the most notoriously popular non-politically correct characters of 20th Century literature. Flashman is a womanizer, a coward, a scoundrel and a cheat, but in the novels, which are all narrated by Flashman himself, he is utterly honest with his readers. He is a man not proud of his faults, but certainly unabashed about them.The Flashman novels could be dismissed as sensationalized light reading , but Fraser cleverly tied his character into most of the major events of the last sixty years of the nineteenth century, a Victorian Zelig or Forrest Gump. Flashman casually mentions this minor detail or that simple observation, then Fraser in his assumed role as editor of the Flashman papers meticulously explains in the endnotes how these mentions by Flashman confirm the truth of his narrative, since only if Flashman was there could he have known about this fact or that. Fraser's endnotes also round out the historic details of the narrative, giving background and elaboration to the history-as-I-lived-it tales told by Flashman. It all works wonderfully, even if you somewhat suspect that some details are being outrageously fabricated.I very strongly recommend these books to anyone who has an interest in history and is willing to keep an open mind towards the womanizing and the language (the n-word appears quite a bit, but completely in character for Flashman). I would suggest the best way to read them is in order of publication. This doesn't follow Flashman's own life chronology, but the books published later often make reference to previous editions of the "Flashman Papers" and so is more fun for the reader to follow.
    • 4/5
      To bring all you historians up to speed: So far in the series Flashman has seen action in four military campaigns: the First Afghan War, Crimea, the Indian Mutiny and the Sioux War of 1879. With Flashman and the Dragon Harry gets himself involved in the Taiping Rebellion. Another worthy note: for this particular installment of papers, George MacDonald Fraser himself acts as editor, admitting he confines his corrections to spelling, while "checking the accuracy of Flashman's narrative and inserting footnotes wherever necessary."Fans of Flashman's sexual conquests will not be disappointed. As usual, Harry works his charms on a number of different women, the most important being the favored Imperial Yi Concubine, Lady Yehonala (who later became Empress Tzu-hsi). She ends up saving his life (much like my favorite tart, Szu-Zhan, from earlier in the story). "Get 'em weeping, and you're halfway to climbing all over them" (p 11).
    • 4/5
      Our intrepid hero, Harry Flashman, is back for volume eight of the Flashman Papers, a narrative of the life and times of one of the most ne’er-do-well wastrels to ever grace the pages of a published autobiography.The first five Flashman novels were presented in chronological order. This “packet”, like its two immediate predecessors, acts to fill in a previous “gap” in the Flashman timeline. From a chronological standpoint, the adventures of this novel immediately follow those contained in Flashman and the Great Game, wherein we left Flashman in the wake of heroic deeds committed in the course of quelling the great Indian Mutiny. After a brief stint in British occupied Hong Kong, Harry believes himself to be on the verge of a return to merry old England and the bosom of his lovely wife Elspeth, only to be drafted into further military service as an intelligence officer in the service of a dangerous diplomatic adventure.As in the previous Flashman novels, our Harry is revealed as the premier coward and opportunist of his era; faults which he quite willingly admits and even boasts of. Much as a prior day Forrest Gump, he has a way of finding himself among the most powerful and famous personages of his era, as he takes part in the great events of the period, in this case, first hand experience in the Taiping Rebellion and Opium Wars of the mid-19th century, including an audience with the Chinese Emperor.Aside from uproarious fun and games, the Flashman series is set against historical events and actually serves as an educational experience. On to volume nine of the Flashman Papers.