George MacDonald Fraser, RIP

by Don Boudreaux on January 3, 2008

George MacDonald Fraser, author of one of my favorite series of novels, died yesterday. (HT Beth Hoffman)

In the early 1990s, my friend George Selgin introduced me to Fraser’s Flashman novels. I read the first one and was hooked. They’re enormously entertaining and filled with lots of sound military history.

Comments

{ 11 comments }

mike January 3, 2008 at 9:45 am: Ah, Flashman! The original anti-hero. I remember the rather poor attempt to make a film of one of the books was what introduced me to the series. I have not read them in many, many years. I think I shall reread a few in memory of Mr. Fraser.
al January 3, 2008 at 1:02 pm: read all the Flashman books at least twice.

once in the order published and once in the chronological order of the history in each book.
Tim Worstall January 3, 2008 at 1:28 pm: Read "The Complete McAuslan". Not published in the US I think but avaiable from amazon.co.uk.
Worth every penny of the shipping fees. It's one of the most glorious series of short stories in the language. Howlingly funny.
No, really, as good as Saki (or O. Henry). Pure genius.
johnny January 3, 2008 at 2:55 pm: I happened across one of the Flashman books when wandering the stacks at my local library some years back. I read the few they had, and others here and there, and last year finally read the last of them. Good stuff.
steve January 3, 2008 at 3:14 pm: RIP, Mr. Fraser. Besides the brilliant "Flashman" and the "fiction" of the McAuslan saga, his autobiographical account of his service in Burma in WWII, "Quartered Safe out Here," is magnificent, and should be required reading at any military school.
Mark Brady January 3, 2008 at 10:21 pm: Fans of George MacDonald Fraser may enjoy John Sutherland's appreciation.
Rolf Norfolk January 4, 2008 at 9:15 am: Suggest also his "Quartered Safe Out Here" (personal war memoir driving the Japanese out of Burma in WWII) and his last, "The Light's On At Signpost", a combination of movie-writing memoir and furious blast at our awful New Labour government.
Tim Worstall January 4, 2008 at 10:16 am: ""Quartered Safe out Here," is magnificent, and should be required reading at any military school."

I'm told that it is at Sandhurst (the UK's version of West Point).
Lee Black January 5, 2008 at 11:20 am: I, too, came across a Flashman book in a local library and was immediately captivated. Searched out every one I could find as well as his "Quartered Safe.." and as an American, found more about my own country's history in his books than anywhere else.When I need a "good" read, I go back to him.
chris gardner January 6, 2008 at 10:40 pm: I was referred to Mr. Fraser's Flashman series after a conversation with a friend where I had expressed my regard for the Hornblower series. I've read all the Flashman installments several times (except for his latest which I was not aware of until reading his NY Times Obituary.) Mr. Fraser's bawdy and hilarious accounts of Flashman's escapades not only bring history to life, it is a lesson on life itself. A lesson about not taking your hero's too literally or without question. If you enjoy historical novels and can laugh out loud and the irreverent, I suggest you take these novels for a gallop.
ralph r. emmers January 7, 2008 at 3:35 pm: A great man, and a great loss to England and Europe. He understood the meaning of freedom.