With the first publication of The Speedicut Papers in 2013, the reading public was shocked to learn that Brigadier General Sir Harry Flashman VC, one of the greatest heroes of the Victorian age, was nothing more than a Paris-based remittance man and a plagiarising fraud. Almost as shocking was the revelation that, for more than 250 years, there has been a secret organisation at the heart of the British Establishment, called The Brotherhood of the Sons of Thunder, which was ruthlessly interfering in the nation’s affairs.
These facts were revealed in a cache of letters written over a lifetime by Colonel Sir Jasper Speedicut, Bart to his friend Harry Flashman, which I discovered in 2010 in the basement of the New Walk Museum in Leicester. Taken together, the letters are a comprehensive record of the life and times of Speedicut: soldier, courtier, bi-sexual and reluctant hero.
In this, the eighth volume of The Speedicut Papers, the public will once again learn of further previously hidden truths that cast a new light on real historical incidents, set against the major events of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Although the first seven volumes of The Speedicut Papers were originally published in letter format, in response to popular demand I have re-edited the books into a narrative text. As with the previously published work, in the interests of clarity I have also annotated the text with dates and historical or explanatory background material.
CHRISTOPHER JOLL