George MacDonald Fraser OBE FRSL (2 April 1925 – 2 January 2008) was an English-born Scottish author and screenwriter. He is best known for a series of works that featured the character Flashman.
Biography[]
Born in Carlisle, just across the Border, Fraser grew up there and in Glasgow. He wrote several books on Scottish history.
In 1966, Fraser got the idea to turn Flashman, a fictional coward and bully originally created by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's School Days (1857), into a hero, and he wrote a novel around the character's exploits. The book proved popular and sale of the film rights enabled Fraser to become a full-time writer. He moved to the Isle of Man where he could pay less tax.
There was a series of further Flashman novels, presented as packets of memoirs written by the nonagenarian Flashman looking back on his days as a hero of the British Army during the 19th century. The series is notable for the accuracy of its historical settings and praise it received from critics. For example, P. G. Wodehouse said of Flashman, "If ever there was a time when I felt that 'watcher-of-the-skies-when-a-new-planet' stuff, it was when I read the first Flashman."
He was one of several writers who worked on the James Bond film Octopussy (1983). Richard Fleischer arranged for him to do work on the script for Red Sonja (1985).
See also[]
- Roald Dahl, another successful author who penned a screenplay for Bond.