Flashman cover art

Flashman

The Flashman Papers, Book 1

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Flashman

By: George MacDonald Fraser
Narrated by: Colin Mace
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

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.

Flashman, soldier, duellist, lover, imposter, coward, cad and hero, triumphs in this first instalment of The Flashman Papers. His adventures as the reluctant secret agent in Afghanistan and his entry into the exclusive company of Lord Cardigan’s Hussars culminate in his foulest hour – his part in the historic disaster of the Retreat from Kabul.

This is the story of a blackguard who enjoyed villainy for its own sake. Shameless, exciting and funny, Flashman’s deplorable odyssey is observed with the cynical eye of a scoundrel who was honest only in reporting what he saw. He makes all other black sheep look respectable grey.

©2015 George MacDonald Fraser (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Espionage Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Spies & Politics Sports Thriller & Suspense War & Military Exciting Witty

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Mystery Man cover art
Where Eagles Dare cover art
Warrior: The Epic Story of Caratacus, Warrior Briton and Enemy of the Roman Empire cover art
Meet the Tiger cover art
I Predict a Riot cover art
The Malevolent Seven cover art
The Mysterious Affair at Styles cover art
Home Front: The Complete BBC Radio Collection, Volume 1 cover art
The Noel Coward BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art
The Complete George Smiley Radio Dramas cover art
Tom Brown's Schooldays cover art
The 13th Valley cover art
Last Bus to Woodstock cover art
The King’s Gambit cover art
Marius' Mules I: The Invasion of Gaul cover art
Once an Eagle cover art
All stars
Most relevant
The entire flash series has been the most entertaining audiobooks I’ve ever listened too. I’d highly recommend these to anyone who’s got any interest in historical/military books and a good sense of humour.

Careful listening to it in the car when your in a car park as some sentences can lead people to assuming that you are a terrible person…

Brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
excellent character, fantastic writing, great humour and you can't help but like the chap...scoundrel though he may be!

Brilliant!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Flashman is a great character. A rogue of the worst kind, supremely spiteful, cowardly and lecherous, he is someone you root for, just to see what kind of scrape he gets into next. This book is the first of about a dozen Flashman novels, all jam packed with meticulously researched military history from the last half of the 19th century. You learn as you laugh at Harry's plights!

The novel is beautifully paced with never a dull moment and the reader is fine. I read all of the Flashman books about 20 years ago, but I think I will now work my way through the audiobooks too. My personal favourite is Flashman and the Redskins.

A cracking version of a great story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well performed and a great story.
As a big fan of the books, one thing sadly missing from the audio is the notes which give a insight into the historical sources and timelines used by GMF and weave in layers to an already great story.

Good listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fun. Mace is OK but not posh enough. The story itself is great, a thoroughly old fashioned romp through Afghanistan, Flashy up to his usual antics!

Flashy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was a bit disappointed with the narrator. He wasn't terrible but many years ago I had an audible account and bought this book and really enjoyed it before you got to keep your old books when pausing your account. I decided to buy again but was confused that it wasn't as good as I remembered but have since discovered the original narrator was Timothy West who was, to my recollection, far superior. I think I'd have liked to have given the performance 3.5 stars really. Colin Mace was not terrible, he does the voices well but I had two issues with him. He tends to mumble in a bit of a bass between dialogue and then bellows when he is doing a character interaction which is quite irritating as you are left constantly jumping for the volume control. I also found something lacking in how he read the non-character interaction parts, hard to define but it felt a bit rushed or not so well told at any rate. Wish Timothy West was available to hear again to see if I'm imagining how much better he was :-/

Disappointing narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
hilarious, horrendous, spineless, immoral cad, in a truly superb adventure. Great narration. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is Interested in historically accurate epic story telling with a fictitious main character.

excellent in every way.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This literally couldn't have been written or told better. Loved it. Factually accurate and excellently told through the eyes of a real hero (or not!)

Perfect

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
After finishing the Aubrey Maturin series, this was not a disappointment. Well worth a listen.

Fantastic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I'm a fan of the Flashman books, and loved the Timothy West-narrated versions that used to be available. Sadly, only a few titles were ever released, so I've had to wait until now to be able to hear the rest of the stories in their full unabridged versions, now with Colin Mace in the narrators chair. The story itself is classic Flashman, the cowardly bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays, charting his expulsion from school to joining the Army and his adventures in Afghanistan. It's a perfect place to start.

For the narration, Colin Mace does a good job, whilst not *quite* reaching the level of sheer caddishness that Timothy West managed to convey. Mace sounds a little "younger" when narrating, which does sit a little awkwardly to the "fact" that this is an elderly Flashie telling of his adventures. I'd also add that he has a habit of speaking a little quieterwhen not conveying speech, which can sometimes make you keep adjusting the volume to try to hear everything without it being too loud. That wouldn't be a problem for listeners at home, but if you're listening in a car like I do, it can be a bit niggly to have to do this. It's a minor thing, though.

I'll definitely be adding others from the mace-narrated collection to my library.

Flashman rides forth.....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews