For Flashman Down Under click HERE Balladeer’s Blog moves on to another Harry Flashman adventure referred to but never completed before George MacDonald Fraser’s death.
Projected Title: FLASHMAN IN THE OPIUM WAR
Time Period: Late in the Second Opium War in China (1859- 1860)
The Setup: In Flashman and the Dragon (1985) readers learned that our antihero Colonel Harry Paget Flashman had been serving in Hong Kong and mainland China long enough to become fluent in the language. Flashman in the Opium War would detail Harry’s adventures in the closing period of the Second Opium War up until the start of the Anglo-French military expedition to Peking.
The Second Opium War is still an incredibly controversial conflict from Queen Victoria’s reign. Even at the time passions ran very much against the war AND against the fact that HMG was seen as accommodating the opium trade in Chinese ports.
To the most critical eyes – then and now – the Empire seemed to be facilitating the market in opium so that certain British businessmen could get rich and if the drug’s use had a very negative, epidemic downside for the Far Eastern customers, that was callously perceived to be a fringe benefit.
As I say, that is the most critical view. More sympathetic figures point out that in the 1800s the world did not have the same derogatory view of the drug trade as now and the drug trade was LEGAL in the Far East. If it hadn’t been British merchants making money off the opium trade then any gaps would have been filled by the Chinese merchants who had been dealing in drugs for centuries.
The Story: Continue reading
Balladeer’s Blog’s reviews of my picks for The Top Five Harry Flashman Novels are still getting more than their share of attention. (Click 
Projected Title: FLASHMAN DOWN UNDER 
Once word reached California about Australia’s very own Gold Rush, Harry could have boarded a ship for Down Under either along with some of the Cali Aussies OR trying to slip away from them for his usual reasons – having slept with some of their women, conning them out of money, etc. 
For Balladeer’s Blog’s Number One Harry Flashman Novel click 
6. FLASHMAN AND THE MOUNTAIN OF LIGHT (1990) 
Harry being Harry, he STILL manages to find time for a brief fling with the wife of a fellow British Officer before getting thrust into the line of fire. And into the schemes and political machinations of the real-life Maharani Jeendan, her brother Jawaheer, the British East India Company and a fanatical real-life military sect called the Khalsa. 
The deliciously decadent Maharani Jeendan is our protagonist’s main bedmate in his latest sword and sex adventure, followed closely by Mangla, the Maharani’s beautiful, calculating slave who had – as history confirms – engineered events to secretly become one of the wealthiest women of the Punjab despite her condition of servitude. 
WOW! Reaction to my Top Five Harry Flashman Novels blog post continues to amaze me! I’m always glad to share my odd enthusiasms with others so it’s been great to bring The Flashman Papers to the attention of new readers. Here in one convenient post are the links to my individual reviews of the Top Five and to my brief look at Flashman’s encounter with young Abraham Lincoln in Flash for Freedom. 
5. FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH (2005) – Setting: Abyssinian Military Expedition of 1867-1868 CLICK 
AND 1. FLASHMAN AT THE CHARGE (1973) – Setting: The Crimean War, 1853-1856 CLICK 
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