George M. Fraser | 'Flashman' author, 82

George MacDonald Fraser, 82, author of the Flashman series of historical adventure yarns, died Wednesday after a battle with cancer, his publisher said.
Nicholas Latimer, director of publicity for Knopf, which is to release Mr. Fraser's latest work, The Reavers, in the United States in April, was unable to provide details of where Mr. Fraser died. He lived on the Isle of Man, off the coast of northwest England.
Flashman, published in 1969, introduced readers to an enduring literary antihero: the roguish, irrepressible Harry Flashman. The novel imagined Flashman - the bullying schoolboy of 19th-century classic Tom Brown's Schooldays - grown up to become a soldier in the British army.
In the book and 11 sequels, Flashman fought, drank and womanized his way across the British Empire, Europe and the United States, playing a pivotal role in the century's great historical moments.
Born in Carlisle, northern England in 1925, Mr. Fraser served as an infantryman with the British army in India and Burma during World War II, and in the Middle East after the war. He worked as a journalist in Britain and Canada for more than 20 years before turning to fiction.

- AP