Ten pages of notes again told the casual reader that he was getting much true historical gen among the comic cuts.īismarck and Schleswig-Holstein aside, Fraser's real interests were the British empire, the American civil war and the wild west. The book also featured Lola Montez, the fabulous beauty of the age, and her lover Ludwig I of Bavaria.

Flashy gives the reader the true story, involving Bismarck and the Schleswig-Holstein affair.

The idea was that Hope had used Flashman's adventures to invent the tale of Rudolf Rassendyll, the Englishman who was the double of the king of Ruritania. This was a double literary conceit, with Flashman, a character from one Victorian novel, getting involved in the plot of another, Anthony Hope's 1894 classic The Prisoner of Zenda. It was turned down a dozen times before Herbert Jenkins, the small independent house best known for publishing PG Wodehouse, brought it out.įraser followed it the next year with Royal Flash.

It is hard now, with Flashman recognised as an international comic classic, to believe that Fraser had difficulty getting the book published.

Royal flash george macdonald fraser