Flashman and the Redskins. George Fraser MacDonald

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      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      How Did I Get the Idea of Flashman?

      Dedication

      Explanatory Note

       Maps

      Introduction

The Forty-Niner

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       The Seventy-Sixer

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Appendix I

       Appendix II

       Footnotes

      Notes

      About the Author

      The FLASHMAN Papers: In chronological order

      The FLASHMAN Papers: In order of publication

       Also by George MacDonald Fraser

       About the Publisher

       EXPLANATORY NOTE

      A singular feature of the Flashman Papers, the memoirs of the notorious bully of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, which were discovered in a Leicestershire saleroom in 1966, is that their author wrote them in self-contained instalments, describing his background and setting the scene anew each time. This has been of great assistance to me in editing the Papers entrusted to me by Mr Paget Morrison of Durban, Flashman’s closest legitimate relative; it has meant that as I opened each new packet of manuscript I could expect the contents to be a complete and self-explanatory book, needing only a brief preface and foot-notes. Six volumes have followed this pattern.

      The seventh volume has proved to be an exception; it follows chronologically (to the very minute) on to the third packet,^fn1 with only the briefest preamble by its aged author. I have therefore felt it necessary to append a résumé of the third packet at the end of this note, so that new readers will understand the events leading up to Flashman’s seventh adventure.

      It was obvious from the early Papers that Flashman, in the intervals of his distinguished and scandalous service in the British Army, visited America more than once; this seventh volume is his Western odyssey. I believe it is unique. Others may have taken part in both the ’49 gold rush and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, but they have not left records of these events, nor did they have Flashman’s close, if reluctant, acquaintance with three of the most famous Indian chiefs, as well as with leading American soldiers, frontiersmen, and statesmen of the time, of whom he has left vivid and, it may be, revealing portraits.

      As with his previous memoirs, I believe his truthfulness is not in question. As students of those volumes will be aware, his personal character was deplorable, his conduct abandoned, and his talent for mischief apparently inexhaustible; indeed, his one redeeming feature was his unblushing veracity as a memorialist. As I hope the footnotes and appendices will show, I have been at pains to check his statements wherever possible, and I am indebted to librarians, custodians, and many members of the great and kindly American public at Santa Fe, СКАЧАТЬ