In Black Ajax, George MacDonald Fraser tells the story of a black man from the United States who nearly became England's champion boxer during the early 19th century. This historical novel is based on the true story of Tom Molineaux, a former slave who won his freedom in a boxing match, then traveled to England, refined his skills, and almost became the first black champ. The story is told by over a dozen witnesses to Molineaux's bouts with the reigning champion, Tom Cribb. Molineaux's trainer recalls the fighter's awe-inspiring strength and speed. A butler who asks to remain anonymous divulges information about the fighter's love affair with an English noblewoman. Molineaux's manager, a former slave and retired boxer, speaks bitterly of his disappointment in the youth for failing to prove to the English that a black man could be as capable a fighter as any white man. Nearly all the witnesses to the first match between the two fighters thought Molineaux lost mainly because the judges gave the white opponent an unfair advantage. All the characters in this novel speak in 19th-century dialect, and it's diverting to try to decipher their many odd turns of phrase. For those who cannot determine the meanings of words such as "Spike Hotel," "toco," "winker," and "wistycastor" from context, the author provides a glossary at the end of the book. Unfortunately, almost all of the characters seem overly fond of using racial epithets, which draws attention to the shortcomings of this book. The main one is that Tom Molineaux, who undoubtedly was a complex, fascinating character, comes across as a stereotype here: a hulk with not many brains but a lot of sex drive. Although Fraser fails in that respect, this novel does vividly chronicle an intriguing episode in the history of sport and race relations. --Jill Marquis

A self-confident performance by an old hand. . . . Mr. Fraser clearly enjoys being master of such a wide and wild plot and makes sure to leave room in it for his most famous creation, the eponymous hero of his "Flashman" adventure series."-- "The New Yorker

It’s 1868 and Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., arch-cad, amorist, cold-headed soldier, and reluctant hero, is back! Fleeing a chain of vengeful pursuers that includes Mexican bandits, the French Foreign Legion, and the relatives of an infatuated Austrian beauty, Flashy is desperate for somewhere to take cover. So desperate, in fact, that he embarks on a perilous secret intelligence-gathering mission to help free a group of Britons being held captive by a tyrannical Abyssinian king. Along the way, of course, are nightmare castles, brigands, massacres, rebellions, orgies, and the loveliest and most lethal women in Africa, all of which will test the limits of the great bounder’s talents for knavery, amorous intrigue, and survival. Flashman on the March—the twelfth book in George MacDonald Fraser’s ever-beloved, always scandalous Flashman Papers series--is Flashman and Fraser at their best.

Flashy, that lustful libertine, takes a round-the-world adventure that would shock Don Juan and make swingers of today green with envy. In an English mansion, he's not just doodling in the drawing room with a blue blood's red-hot-blooded mistress; in Africa, he's forced to serve a sultry queen who kills low-endurance lovers. The irresistable antihero heads to China, where he gets between a pair of Chinese beauties who'll do anything to improve East-West relations; en route, he takes cover on warship under fire with an explosive Malay maiden. "A romp that will have lucky readers chortling with delight." (Publishers Weekly)

In THE PYRATES, the author of the celebrated Flashman novels pays tongue-in-cheek homage to the swashbuckling books and movies that have always stirred his imagination. In these rollicking pages you'll find tall ships and desert islands; impossibly gallant adventurers and glamorous heroines; devilishly sinister cads and ghastly dungeons; improbably acrobatic duels and hair's-breadth escapes; and more plot twists than you can shake a rapier at. A deliriously entertaining combination of Errol Flynn action-adventure and Naked Gun pastiche.

George MacDonald Fraser was famed for his legendary Flashman series, featuring the incorrigible knave Harry Flashman. In the colorful standalone novel Captain in Calico, which has never been published, Fraser introduces another real-life anti-hero: Captain John Rackham, called “Calico Jack,” an illustrious eighteenth-century pirate who marauded the Caribbean seas. On a tranquil evening in the Bahamas, Calico Jack, long wanted on counts of piracy, makes a surprise appearance at the Governor’s residence and asks for a pardon. A deal is brokered after Jack reveals the motive for turning himself in: love. When he last set sail from the Bahamas two years ago, Jack left behind a beautiful fiancée, and he hopes to win her back. But while Jack was off pirating, his beloved has become betrothed to a new man—the governor himself. It doesn’t take long for this truth to come to light, and after embarking on a new romance with famous Irish pirate Anne Bonney, Jack is quickly transformed back into a thieving captain in calico. With his trademark picaresque style, Fraser draws readers into the wild west of the British empire, where black sails prowl the waters and redemption can be found in the most unexpected places.

George MacDonald Fraser's hilarious stories of the most disastrous soldier in the British Army are collected together for the first time in one volume. Private McAuslan, J., the Dirtiest Soldier in the World (alias the Tartan Caliban, or the Highland Division's answer to the Pekin Man) first demonstrated his unfitness for service in The General Danced at Dawn. He continued his disorderly advance, losing, soiling or destroying his equipment, through the pages of McAuslan in the Rough. The final volume, The Sheikh and the Dustbin, pursues the career of the great incompetent as he shambles across North African and Scotland, swinging his right arm in time with his right leg and tripping over his untied laces. His admirers know him as court-martial defendant, ghost-catcher, star-crossed lover and golf caddie extraordinary. Whether map-reading his erratic way through the Sahara by night or confronting Arab rioters, McAuslan's talent for catastrophe is guaranteed. Now, the inimitable McAuslan stories are collected together in one glorious volume.

From the author of the ever-popular Flashman novels, a collection of film-world reminiscences and trenchant thoughts on Cool Britannia, New Labour and other abominations. In between writing Flashman novels, George MacDonald Fraser spent thirty years as an "incurably star struck" screenwriter, working with the likes of Steve McQueen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cubby Broccoli, Burt Lancaster, Federico Fellini and Oliver Reed. Now he shares his recollections of those encounters, providing a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes. Far from starry-eyed where Tony Blair Co are concerned, he looks back also to the Britain of his youth and castigates those responsible for its decline to "a Third World country … misruled by a typical Third World government, corrupt, incompetent and undemocratic". Controversial, witty and revealing – or "curmudgeonly", "reactionary", "undiluted spleen", according to the critics – The Light's on at Signpost has struck a chord with a great section of the public. Perhaps, as one reader suggests, it should be "hidden beneath the floorboards, before the Politically-Correct Thought Police come hammering at the door, demanding to confiscate any copies".

George MacDonald Fraser--beloved for his series of Flashman historical novels--offers an action-packed memoir of his experiences in Burma during World War II. Fraser was only 19 when he arrived there in the war's final year, and he offers a first-hand glimpse at the camaraderie, danger, and satisfactions of service. A substantial Epilogue, occasioned by the 50th anniversary of VJ-Day in 1995, adds poignancy to a volume that eminent military historian John Keegan described as "one of the great personal memoirs of the Second World War."

George MacDonald Fraser’s uproarious bestselling Flashman series, now available in one complete ebook for the first time. THE COMPLETE FLASHMAN PAPERS is the entire collection of Flashman’s perilous missions across the world. Spanning from 1839 right through to 1894 the incorrigible Flashman fears all evil and when it comes to voluptuous queens and princesses he has be known to waver from his mission. Filled to the gunnels with escapades of unwavering excitement THE COMPLETE FLASHMAN PAPERS will quench even the most ravenous appetite for Flashman.

To the young Lady Margaret Dacre, raised in the rich security of Queen Elizabeth's court, the Scottish border was a land of blood and brutal violence, and her broad inheritance lay at the mercy of the outlaw riders and feuding tribes of England's last frontier. This title presents a tale from the bestselling author of the Flashman Papers.

In the middle of Europe's Revolutions of 1848, England's No. 1 scoundrel is using all his reserves of deceit, low cunning and treachery to stay one jump ahead of death. As Harry Flashman plays for his life against the unholy alliance of Count Otto von Bismarck and Lola Montez, he tries to thwart an international double-cross that could change the destiny of a continent. "Irresistible entertainment...rollicking adventure...the most engaging rogue you are likely to meet....Flashman tells his story with the sexual avidity of a Frank Harris and the range span of a Portnoy." (San Francisco Examiner) ROYAL FLASH is second in the series, following FLASHMAN, the introductory volume.

For starters, Harry Flashman is expelled from school as a drunken bully. After seducing his father's mistress, he begins a secret life that leads from the boudoirs and bordellos of Victorian England to the erotic frontiers of her exotic Empire. Along the way he lies, cheats, steals, fights fixed duels, betrays his country and proves a coward on the battlefield. "The refreshingly funny and ribald adventure story told by a rogue who is a cross between Byron's Don Juan and Fielding's Tom Jones." (Best Sellers)

Flashman at his worst. But for his fans, that means he's at his best in this, his most reckless, erotic adventure yet. Flashy yearns to unclothe the wife of a man of the cloth, smuggles opium to Hong Kong, grovels to a warlord, hooks up with a lady pirate from the Amazon and offers himself as a sex toy to the world's most stunning -- and evil -- woman. As usual, Flashy rises to each occasion, no matter how low he must go. "Extremely funny, but meticulously authentic. Between guffaws, you learn from it." (The Washington Post)