For starters, Harry Flashman is expelled from school as a drunken bully. After seducing his father's mistress, he begins a secret life that leads from the boudoirs and bordellos of Victorian England to the erotic frontiers of her exotic Empire. Along the way he lies, cheats, steals, fights fixed duels, betrays his country and proves a coward on the battlefield. "The refreshingly funny and ribald adventure story told by a rogue who is a cross between Byron's Don Juan and Fielding's Tom Jones." (Best Sellers)