Flashman's Lady

Presented within the frame of the supposedly discovered historical Flashman Papers, this book describes the bully Flashman from Tom Brown's School Days. The papers are attributed to Harry Paget Flashman, who is not only the bully featured in Thomas Hughes' novel, but also a well-known Victorian military hero. The book begins with an explanatory note that while this is the sixth packet of the papers to be published, the story contained within actually takes place chronologically after Flashman, the first packet to be published, and between the two timeframes featured in Royal Flash, the second story to be published.

Flashman's Lady begins with Flashman's encounter with Tom Brown, a former acquaintance from Rugby School, and progresses through cricket, battling pirates with James Brooke in Borneo, and enslavement in Madagascar under Queen Ranavalona I, detailing his life from 1842 to 1845. This book is unique among the Flashman series for containing extracts from the diary of his wife, Elspeth. It also contains a number of notes by Fraser, in the guise of editor, giving additional historical information on the events described.

The story begins with a chance meeting between Flashman and Tom Brown in a London tavern, the Green Man.[Note 1] As Flashman was a good cricket bowler at school, Brown invites him to join a scratch team of Old Rugbeians Brown is organising, to play in a cricket match at Lord's.

Flashman's impressive play (performing possibly the first ever hat-trick) leads to more matches, and an encounter with Daedalus Tighe, a notorious bookie. He also meets Don Solomon Haslam, a businessman from the East Indies, who has a lot of money, prestige, and a fascination for Elspeth, Flashman's wife. Due to a wager with Haslam, blackmail from Tighe, and threats from an angry, cuckolded duke, Flashman is forced to accompany Haslam, Elspeth, and Morrison (his father-in-law) on a trip to Singapore.

Haslam kidnaps Elspeth and flees east; investigations reveal that "Don Solomon Haslam", Old Etonian and prosperous businessman in London and Singapore, is also "Suleiman Usman", a well-known pirate prince based in Borneo. Flashman must reluctantly chase after them, with the help of James Brooke. This chase takes him to the jungles of Borneo, the nests of pirates, and finally to Madagascar, where the Malagasies enslave him and Queen Ranavalona makes him her military adviser and lover. Escape from the island seems impossible, and with his wife's help he has to overcome his cowardice to evade their minders.