Fraser was a very successful British writer who made his name and a not inconsiderable fortune by writing a series of pseudo-adventure stories centered on the character of Harry Flashman, the bully and bad guy in Thomas Hughes’s hymn to Rugby school Tom Browne’s School Days. Flashman is everything the Public School ethic despises: lazy, weak in character, a liar, a cheat, a boozer etc. Frazer’s books pick up Flashman after he gets the boot from Rugby and create a series of adventures in which the anti-hero’s vices are on vivid display. Despite being an utter rotter and cad, Flashman moves from triumph to triumph on the various fronts of the Empire, amassing wealth and prestige and ultimately the Victoria Cross and the rank of General. It’s all meant to mock the Straight Arrow, Work Hard and Get Ahead, Character Always Comes Through public philosophy of the Victorian era. Flashman is and does none of these. But he is incredibly lucky, and luck does what Character didn’t. I guess the take away moral is: Be a Winner, and nobody will ask too many questions. True then, true now. Fraser came from a medical family, his father a physician and his mother a nurse.He wrote several screen plays and other historical novels, all well based on thorough research. He also penned a memoir of his Army service in the Far East,
Quartered Safe Out Here, which was widely praised as among the best of the personal narratives of World War II.
Obit
This is the link to the London Telegraph obituary. If it doesn’t work, go to Arts and Letters Daily
Arts