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Black Ajax
''Black Ajax'' is a historical novel by George MacDonald Fraser based on the career of Tom Molineaux. The father of Harry Flashman appears as a major character although the book is not part of the official ''Flashman'' series. As in those novels, several real life characters are depicted including: *Tom Molineaux *Bill Richmond *Tom Cribb *George IV *Beau Brummel *Pierce Egan *Harriette Wilson *Henry Somerset, 7th Duke of Beaufort Major Henry Somerset, 7th Duke of Beaufort, KG (5 February 1792 – 17 November 1853), styled Earl of Glamorgan until 1803 and Marquess of Worcester between 1803 and 1835, was a British peer, soldier, and politician. Background Beaufort was th ... References {{George MacDonald Fraser Novels by George MacDonald Fraser 1997 British novels HarperCollins books ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser (2 April 1925 – 2 January 2008) was a British author and screenwriter. He is best known for a series of works that featured the character Flashman. Biography Fraser was born to Scottish parents in Carlisle, England, on 2 April 1925. His father was a doctor and his mother a nurse. It was his father who passed on to Fraser his love of reading, and a passion for his Scottish heritage. Fraser was educated at Carlisle Grammar School and Glasgow Academy; he later described himself as a poor student due to "sheer laziness". This meant that he was unable to follow his father's wishes and study medicine. War service In 1943, during World War II, Fraser enlisted in the Border Regiment and served in the Burma campaign, as recounted in his memoir ''Quartered Safe Out Here'' (1993). After completing his Officer Cadet Training Unit (OCTU) course, Fraser was granted a commission into the Gordon Highlanders. He served with them in the Middle East and North Africa i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp. The name is a combination of several publishing firm names: Harper & Row, an American publishing company acquired in 1987—whose own name was the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers (founded in 1817) and Row, Peterson & Company—together with Scottish publishing company William Collins, Sons (founded in 1819), acquired in 1989. The worldwide CEO of HarperCollins is Brian Murray. HarperCollins has publishing groups in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, India, and China. The company publishes many different imprints, both former independent publishing houses and new imprints. History Collins Harper Mergers and acquisitions Collins was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corpora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Molineaux
Thomas Molineaux (23 March 1784 – 4 August 1818), sometimes spelled Molyneaux or Molyneux, was an American bare-knuckle boxer and possibly a former slave. He spent much of his career in Great Britain and Ireland, where he had some notable successes. He arrived in England in 1809 and started his fighting career there in 1810. His two fights against Tom Cribb, widely viewed as the Champion of England, brought Molineaux fame even though he lost both contests. The result of the first encounter was hotly contested, with accusations of a fix. The second, losing contest with Cribb, however, was undisputed. His prizefighting career ended in 1815. After a tour that took him to Scotland and Ireland, he died in Galway, Ireland in 1818, aged 34. Early life According to some of the chroniclers of 19th-century boxing, Molineaux was born into slavery in the State of Virginia, USA in 1784. The most detailed account claims that he was born on a plantation and that he took his surname from t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Flashman
Sir Harry Paget Flashman is a fictional character created by Thomas Hughes (1822–1896) in the semi-autobiographical ''Tom Brown's School Days'' (1857) and later developed by George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008). Harry Flashman appears in a series of 12 of Fraser's books, collectively known as ''The Flashman Papers'', with covers illustrated by Arthur Barbosa and Gino D’Achille. Flashman was played by Malcolm McDowell in the Richard Lester 1975 film '' Royal Flash''. In ''Tom Brown's School Days'' (1857), Flashman is portrayed as a notorious Rugby School bully who persecutes Tom Brown and is finally expelled for drunkenness, at which point he simply disappears. Fraser decided to write the story of Flashman's later life, in which the school bully would be identified as an "illustrious Victorian soldier", experiencing many of the 19th-century wars and adventures of the British Empire and rising to high rank in the British Army, to be acclaimed as a great warrior, while stil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Richmond
Bill Richmond (5 August 1763 – 28 December 1829) was a British boxer, born into slavery in Richmondtown, New York. Although born in Colonial America, he lived for the majority of his life in England, where all his boxing contests took place. Richmond went to England in 1777, where he had his education paid for. He then apprenticed as a cabinetmaker in York. In the early 1790s, Richmond married a local English woman, whose name was probably Mary Dunwick, in a marriage recorded in Wakefield on 29 June 1791. Richmond and his wife had several children. According to boxing writer Pierce Egan, the well-dressed, literate, and self-confident Richmond came on the receiving end of racist attitudes in Yorkshire. Egan described several brawls involving Richmond because of insults. One brawl occurred after someone labeled Richmond a "black devil" for being with a white woman—probably a reference to Richmond's wife. According to Egan, Richmond fought and won five boxing matches i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Cribb
Tom Cribb (8 July 1781 – 11 May 1848) was a world champion English bare-knuckle boxer of the 19th century. Cribb was born near Bristol but moved to London before starting professional fighting. He undertook a series of fights between 1805 and 1812 when he retired, becoming a coal merchant and then publican. His career has been commemorated with the name of a pub and in literature. Early life Born in Wick near the Hanham area of Bristol, Cribb moved to London at the age of 13 and after working as a bell-hanger he sought work as a coal porter in Wapping. Boxing career His first fight was with George Maddox on 7 January 1805 at Wood Green in Middlesex, now part of north London. Victory here, over Maddox, followed by another a month later, over Tom Blake persuaded him to become a professional pugilist, under the supervision of Captain Robert Barclay. George Nicholls was the only fighter to defeat Cribb, on 20 July 1805. Later, the foremost prizefighting reporter, Pierce Egan, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George IV
George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten years later. At the time of his accession to the throne, he was acting as Prince Regent, having done so since 5 February 1811, during his father's final mental illness. George IV was the eldest child of King George III and Queen Charlotte. He led an extravagant lifestyle that contributed to the fashions of the Regency era. He was a patron of new forms of leisure, style and taste. He commissioned John Nash to build the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and remodel Buckingham Palace, and commissioned Jeffry Wyatville to rebuild Windsor Castle. George's charm and culture earned him the title "the first gentleman of England", but his dissolute way of life and poor relationships with his parents and his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, earned him the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beau Brummel
George Bryan "Beau" Brummell (7 June 1778 – 30 March 1840) was an important figure in Regency England and, for many years, the arbiter of men's fashion. At one time, he was a close friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV, but after the two quarrelled and Brummell got into debt, he had to take refuge in France. Eventually, he died shabby and insane in Caen. Brummell was remembered afterwards as the preeminent example of the dandy, and a whole literature was founded upon his manner and witty sayings, which have persisted until today. His name is still associated with style and good looks and has been given to a variety of modern products to suggest their high quality. Life Brummell was born in London, the younger son of Jane (née Richardson, daughter of the Keeper of the Lottery Office) and William Brummell (d. 1794), Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Lord North. On his retirement from politics, William had bought Donnington Grove in Berkshire and serve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierce Egan
Pierce Egan (1772–1849) was a British journalist, sportswriter, and writer on popular culture. His popular book '' Life in London'', published in 1821, was adapted into the stage play ''Tom and Jerry, or Life in London'' later that year, which became the first play to have a continuous run of 100 performances in London during its run at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End. Coining the term "the Sweet Science" as an epithet for prizefighting — which he dubbed "the Sweet Science of Bruising" as a description of England’s bare-knuckle fight scene, the first volume of his prizefighting articles, '' Boxiana; or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism'', was published in 1813. Life Egan's parents were Irish but he may have been born in the London area. He went into the printing trade, and was a compositor for George Smeeton in 1812. He established himself as the country's leading reporter of sporting events, which at the time meant mainly prize-fights and horse-races. He die ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harriette Wilson
Harriette Wilson (2 February 1786 – 10 March 1845) was the author of ''The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson: Written by Herself'' (1825). Wilson was a famed British Regency courtesan who became the mistress of William, Lord Craven, at the age of 15. Later in her career, she went on to have formal relationship arrangements with Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and other significant politicians. Early life Harriette Dubouchet's birth at 2 Carrington Street, in Shepherd Market, Mayfair, London, was recorded in the parish register of St George, Hanover Square. Her father kept a small shop with his wife, Amelia, ''née'' Cook. Her father is said to have assumed the surname of Wilson about 1801. One of the fifteen children of Swiss John James Dubouchet (or ''De Bouchet''), Wilson was one of four sisters in the family who pursued careers as concubines. Her sisters Amy, Fanny and Sophia also became courtesans. In her memoir, Wilson claims that Amy sets a poor example for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Somerset, 7th Duke Of Beaufort
Major Henry Somerset, 7th Duke of Beaufort, KG (5 February 1792 – 17 November 1853), styled Earl of Glamorgan until 1803 and Marquess of Worcester between 1803 and 1835, was a British peer, soldier, and politician. Background Beaufort was the eldest son of Henry Somerset, 6th Duke of Beaufort, and Lady Charlotte Sophia, daughter of Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford. Lord Granville Somerset was his younger brother. Military and political career Beaufort was commissioned a cornet in the 10th Hussars on 18 June 1811. He was promoted to lieutenant in the 14th Light Dragoons on 21 August, but transferred back to the 10th Hussars on 6 September. Worcester also served as an aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington in Portugal and Spain between 1812 and 1814. In 1813, Beaufort was returned as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Monmouth Boroughs, as a Tory, and continued to hold the seat until 1831. On 26 October 1815, he transferred to the 7th Hussars. In the follo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By George MacDonald Fraser
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the histori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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