The Question

"To Be or Not to Be" appears in Act III, Scene 1 of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. I consider it one of Shakespeare's 'problem soliloquies' along with "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" from Macbeth Act V, Scene 5, as both possess nothing in particular to do with their plays at large. They are thematic: they do not advance the plot and do not mention its events. Hamlet does not reference Claudius, Elsinore, Denmark, or the story at all until the very end, whereupon has been stapled a line about Ophelia as she enters the scene. With this exception, the speech could otherwise be excised and moved into any of the other tragedies. The same cannot be said for "Rogue and Peasant Slave.”

This is just the start of "To Be's" troubles. Dramaturges have been plagued for centuries by the placement of the speech. In Q2 and the Folio it follows Act II, Scene 2, immediately after we see Hamlet resolute to act. He says "The play's the thing // Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." He's shouting, screaming, and finally determined to pursue his vengeance.

Then, the very next scene, he stumbles onstage pondering the existential meaninglessness of existence, seemingly contemplating suicide.

This storytelling contradiction sometimes leads foolish directors to move 3.1 into Act II, so that it predates "Rogue and Peasant Slave" and lends a more logical flow to Hamlet's psychological development. Productions that have taken this approach include David Tennant's 2009 film and Benedict Cumberbatch's 2015 National Theatre taped performance. I have seen others that eliminate it entirely.

These choices are understandable. They're also misguided. Act II provides crucial insight into the meaning of this soliloquy. It cannot be fully understood without Hamlet's interactions with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

The words themselves are just as troublesome to actors. Are there any better known in English? In any language? How can an actor get up on stage and say "To be or not to be, that is the question" with a straight face, when he knows that everyone in the audience is rolling their eyes?

This is probably why everyone gets this part of Hamlet so terribly wrong. This soliloquy is impossible. Better to just get rid of it, really.

Yet the core dilemma “To Be” reveals is eternal. With these 33 lines, Shakespeare boils down all of human existence into its fundamental struggle.

In high school, I was taught that this speech is about suicide. This isn’t entirely wrong. Suicide is the metaphor that Hamlet employs to illustrate his point. But the speech is not about dying. What “To Be” is really about is giving up. And whether or not to give up is the most basic question that men and women must contend with every day.

The Text In Full

For reference. Whatever punctuation you find in printings of Shakespeare is not original, so I have taken the liberty to re-punctuate the speech in accordance with how I think it should be read.

To be or not to be, that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd, to die. To sleep. 
To sleep--perchance, to dream. Aye, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?
Th'oppressor's wrong? The proud man's contumely?
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

An Analysis & Translation: Line-By-Line

To be or not to be, that is the question.

SparkNotes' "No Fear Shakespeare," an extremely valuable tool despite its flaws, translates this sentiment as: "The question is: is it better to be alive or dead?" For your average high school senior, this reading is adequate. This is the thesis statement for the entire soliloquy, so let's be literal:

“To be or not to be" means "to exist or not to exist." This is not the same thing as “to be alive or dead.” Life and death are specific: existence and non-existence are general. This is vital when we try to understand the actual implications of this monologue.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them.

Is it better to passively endure the misery that Fortune sends our way, or should we fight back and try to make our lives better? In other words, is it better to press on, or to give up?

This sentiment is part of Hamlet’s foundation as a character. Duty-bound as he is, even with his mousetrap for Claudius set and in play (so to speak), he lacks the conviction to carry out his plans. There's nothing worse that a production of Hamlet can do than bring the Prince out on stage and have him deliver these few lines with tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, and a broken voice, crying like he is so depressed that he just wants to die.

That isn't it. Hamlet does want to avenge his father. He tells us constantly how badly he wants to kill Claudius. If he kills himself, he will never be able to do his duty. But he can't. He can't find the drive within himself to keep moving forward. He's an author with writer's block; an athlete who can't find the motivation to go to the gym; an academic who no longer enjoys his research.

Fighting back against Claudius is hard. It's a lot of work. He wants the victory, but he doesn't want to fight the war. He would rather go be an actor instead. That's the point. But he is usually played as simply depressed—I suspect this is because the kind of person who plays Hamlet has never felt like Hamlet in his life.

To die, to sleep
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.

This seems to be a paradox. To die is to sleep no more, yet death is also the eternal sleep that would end the pain and suffering of life.

Which is it? We can’t know until we get there. It is a paradox, because death is both.

In this passage, the metaphor of 'giving up' is extended into death. Death is the ultimate way to give up--to give up on life, and all the people you know and love, and everything you have ever wanted.

But that wouldn’t be so bad. With the end of life, so ends suffering.

'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd, to die. 

These two lines are part of the same sentence. At this point in his soliloquy, Hamlet says clearly that death is something to be desired. But soon comes a turn.

To sleep. 
To sleep--perchance, to dream. Aye, there's the rub!

At first, the thought of eternal sleep over struggle appeals to Hamlet. Sleep is rest, and rest is preferable to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But sleep is not rest. Sleep brings dreams.

These lines can be read as an allusion to the afterlife. But Hamlet has also just told us:

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Hamlet has bad dreams. That's why death, if a sleep it is, is no relief: because sleep provides him no relief. He is haunted, metaphorically in addition to literally. So when he next says:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

We already know the answer. He's told us well. Bad ones.

This might be true for death. We do not know what awaits us after the end of our lives. But if we think about this monologue as instead being about giving up more broadly, this line is still where the soliloquy takes its main meaning.

“What dreams may come” can follow any decision. What dreams may come if we let Claudius reign as king? If we give in to our fortunes? If we quit our job, or if we decide to keep it?

If we choose not to be, what dreams may come? That is why men choose to be.

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

In a literal sense, the fear of the afterlife is what makes men too cowardly to kill themselves. In a metaphorical sense, the fear of the unknown is what forces us to keep fighting.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?
Th'oppressor's wrong? The proud man's contumely?
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

Who would endure the terrible miseries of life if not for fear of Hell, or something worse? Oppression, pride, unrequited love, unjust laws, bad politicians, and the good done wrong by the bad, when he could kill himself and be rid of all of it in an instant?

Who would fardels bear
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,

Who would endure chemotherapy if not for fear of cancer? Who would endure oppression if not for fear of war? Who would suffer through four years of higher education if they didn't think the unknown alternative was even worse?

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveler returns,

This is the most problematic line in the play and evidence to me that this speech wasn't written for Hamlet originally. Hamlet's father has returned from the bourn of death; the whole plot hinges on the appearance of his ghost. Still, rhetorically, this line serves its purpose: there is no way for us to know what awaits us after death, just like there's no way for us to know what awaits us if we refuse medical treatment, or let a corrupt politician take power, or quit our jobs because we don't want to go in to work today.

puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.

Fear of the unknown. That is why we fight back, even when giving up seems easier. That's the only thing that keeps us from succumbing to our desire to no longer exist.

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

Men think too much, and by thinking about alternatives to what we currently know, we turn ourselves into cowards, and opt out of what appears to be an obvious choice: to succumb to temptation and give up.

And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

And it's through too much thinking that men lose their purpose and go off-course. Just like Hamlet, brought off-course between Act II, Scene 2 and Act III, Scene 1, lost here in thought during his soliloquy instead of preparing the players for his trap.

If it weren’t for Ophelia's entrance, and the fury she whips him into, I believe Hamlet wouldn't have gone through with his plans. He would have remained thinking, alone, isolated. All throughout the play we see it's only when he's angry, only after he infuriates himself during "Rogue and Peasant Slave," after he has been given back his love letters by Ophelia and seen Claudius' guilt, that he can bring himself to act. That trick by Polonius and Claudius, ironically, is what finally sets the play moving toward its conclusion after two inactive acts. If they hadn't done anything, I think Hamlet would have chosen "not to be."

He wouldn't have killed himself. But he would have endured the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and done nothing to take arms against them. He would have given up.

Conclusion

Hamlet takes "to exist or not to exist" to its logical conclusion as a rhetorical exercise. While contemplating giving up, he considers suicide. But suicide isn't really what he means. The "sleep of death" can just as well be Claudius' unchallenged reign in Elsinore, or facing the Ghost's wrath; the "sleep of death" is any challenge one desires to face down yet finds himself unwilling to fight against. Life is terrible. Is it better to suffer through it, or to fight back, to seize what you want and act on your ambitions?

This fundamental dichotomy, between giving up and fighting back, manifests itself everywhere, every day, in everything anyone does.

I discovered Hamlet in college, during a period when I could not decide if I wanted to give up on acting or not. I performed this soliloquy at a local Shakespearean festival the next year, and I found tremendous meaning in Hamlet’s words. Over the following years, as I struggled to decide whether to continue in the theatre, whether I should go back to school, whether or not this blog is worth my time, I have returned to it again and again.

These aren't discussions one has with himself in fits of melancholia, with tears streaming down his face. They are a rational dialogue within the mind contemplating the question: to be, or not to be. That is always the question.

Usually the answer is the former. Sometimes it can be the latter. I gave up on the theatre shortly before COVID. I miss it sometimes, but that was the right decision. “Not to be” is not always wrong.

Without Hamlet, I would have found it much harder to grapple with the slings and arrows of my own outrageous fortune. That is the true power of great literature. It helps us understand ourselves.

Act I

Nineteen to twenty-three, I carried with
Me in my backpack everywhere I went
A No Fear Shakespeare reader of the play
Hamlet. In school we'd read the Scottish Play
And Romeo and Juliet; from these
I learned that I myself indeed was quite
The fan of all the Bard's great tragedies.

Of all those I had read and seen, I knew
From Slings & Arrows, Canada's premier
Satirical Shakespearian tele-
Vision series, that Hamlet would to me
Be dearest of the lot.

This was despite
That never had I watched or read the play
Myself, not in its entirety.
Yet even so I felt, from what I'd seen,
A kinship with the Melancholy Prince,
Though why this was I knew precisely not.

But all this changed when I did enroll in
An acting class anon, and there, one night
When choosing of a scene, the instructor
Did direct me toward Elsinore, and thus
I knew my course. And so I learned my true
Love for Prince Hamlet, melancholy Dane;
A man with whom I felt such kindred pain.

Act II

Therefore it comes as no surprise to hear
I have myself a certain set of strong
Opinions on how this play should be
Presented in production. Alas!
I never had the good fortune before
The days of COVID came to see Hamlet
Performéd live upon a city's stage,
But I have seen all the most notable
Cinematic adaptations, which all,
I find, share with themselves a certain trait:
A little more than goodly, less than good.

Of all I've seen, the best filmed in Russian,
The worst with Benedict Cucumberpatch,
None seem to get the play, and above all
The Prince himself, quite right. Unlike Macbeth,
For which the mean, I would contend, is good
Enough, every production of Hamlet
Gets at the play at least half wrong. Even
The finest, Russian Gamlet, alongside
Branagh's fourteen hour long masterpiece,
Do err greatly from how I think the play
Should play, indeed needs play, if it is to
Achieve its full effect as well as e'en
A poor production of King Lear might do.

I have myself the role performed pieces
Across the last four years; so it should come
As no surprise that this has coloréd
My views on what and what not should be done
If putting on this show. So be aware
That all the thoughts enclosed herein are but
My own subjective, tainted feelings on
Hamlet, the man and play and tale alike;
But bold enough I am to claim aloud
That truly great a show of Hamlet ne'er
Has e'er been put to film. The reasons why?
Well, thus I will an explanation try.

Act III

Unlike the other tragedies, Hamlet
Is strange. Its plot meanders, focus lost:
Of five acts, two are spent confirming that
Which viewers know already to be true--
That Claudius indeed did slay the king.
The antic disposition once assumed
To us in modern day makes no to lit-
Le sense. Perhaps some context has been lost
That to Elizabethans would explain
The gain in false erratic behavior.
All this and more does complicate the tale
And makes the Prince himself the key to the
Whole show, in such a way that other plays
Suffer not from.

Perhaps it comes as no
Great shock that Hamlet is the key with which
A play named Hamlet might be thus unlocked;
And yet the point I mean to make is that
Hamlet, the man, is just what's always wrong,
From Branagh to Olivier, and from
Tennant to Smoktunovsky, all these fail,
Great actors though they are, to find
The core of who the fellow is. Foremost:

Always is Hamlet played too old. He is,
Despite being the hardest role in all theatre,
A child. The play ceases to make all sense
When Prince Hamlet is played adult; wherefore
Would he have not ascended to the throne
If he himself were yet of age? The plot
And all its hue hinges completely on
This fact.

Hamlet, if passed over for king
Once an adult, is cast himself
As deficient somehow in character--
Whereas in fact we're told this much, that as

[Hamlet is] loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgement, but their eyes.
And where 'tis so, th' offender's scourge is weighed,
But never the offense.

(Spoken by Claudius: Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 3)

In words much easier to parse: the Prince
Is popular with common folk, and so
King Claudius is thus constrained in what
He is allowed to do to dispatch with
His ever-more annoying nephew-son.

The only explanation for his uncle's
Ascendancy to king, therefore, is the
Minority of Prince Hamlet. This goes
Similarly to show how sane the Prince
Must be, to be beloved so by those
Of the many "distracted multitude."
Throughout all of the play it is remarked
How well a king Hamlet would make, once he
Was old enough to bear the weight of all
The realm of Denmark. It is thus alone
That we conclude Hamlet must be a child
If at all the story is to function.

Yet more significant reasons remain
Why Hamlet should, at most, be twenty years
Of age, or leastways played as a young man,
E'en if the actor in the part is fully grown.
This is because, at its own core, Hamlet's
Primary task is to determine what
A type of man he is: a warrior or
A poet? To be a king, or be a bard?
The Prince's tragedy is not that he
Cannot make up his mind, as many claim,
But that he does not know who he should be at all.
His mother wants a prince; his father wants
A vengeful warrior; he himself, howe'er,
Seems nothing more to want than be a bard.
Of all the conflict in the play, foremost
Is youthful confusion, uncertainty,
Duty placed in antithesis to dreams:

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

(Spoken by Hamlet: Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2)

With these prose words spoken above so clear
Is made this fact: were not that Hamlet had
Bad dreams, tormented by his father's ghost,
To be an actor and a prince contents
Him well enough. It's duty thus that sets
Him on his course, and forces him to choose
'Tween what he wants, and what he's forced to do.

There is no boy for whom this question fails
To stupefy. Yet should a man,
By thirty at the latest, answers lack,
The fault lies not upon his stars, nor in
The nature of mankind, but in himself.
That tale is not a tragedy; it is a farce.

Indeed it is my opinion that all
The characters within this play
Should be as young as they can be playéd.
What cause has Claudius to love the Queen
When she is old and withered, best unseen?
The King is cool, well-liked by all, and he
Should thus be played as such.
T'was not, methinks, poor Billy's plan,
For Claudius to be so old a man:

Act IV

The qualities that best distinguish The
Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
from Shakespeare's other tragic works
Lie in its sense of humor and of wit.
A cautionary tale though might it be,

HAMLET IS FUNNY.

From out his lips fly jokes and puns and jibes
With wit enough to even Yorick shame.
Hamlet's defining feature as a man
Is his quick wit and excellent fancy,
Though deeply tarnished it may be of late.
This is the greatest reassurance in
The play that he in fact is sane. As has
Been said by many a critic, Hamlet
Is by far the sanest person in the play.

Combined with Polonius' foolishness,
For Polonius is the best among
All Shakespeare's many clowns, Hamlet is thus
A play that bursts with irony and jokes,
Just waiting on the page to be let out.

And yet they never are, 'least not in film.
Take Branagh, who I use, though flawed he be,
For overall a strength in soliloquies:

Act II, Scene 2: Polonius to King
Claudius reads the poems Hamlet wrote
And gifted to his daughter out of love:

Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar,
Never doubt I love.

This poem reads to me innocuous.
A young, infatuated man grants to
The target of his crush a love poem.
I do maintain the notion that Ophelia
And Hamlet slept together ere the play
Began to be absurd. Who for his lover writes
Such innocent and boyish poetry? It's thus
That when Polonius responds aghast
To this so simple a declaration of
A young man's love, he is then made to seem
All more the fool.

And yet! In Branagh's scene the music swells,
The lady in her eyes has tears, the shock
Upon the faces of the cast is clear
And all the joke within this scene, the joke
That Polonius is a busy-body'd fool,
Is lost. So melodrama earned, all mirth
Is stricken from the play.

(I would provide a screenshot of the scene
With which my point to illustrate. Alas,
Jeff Bezos has decreed that such a use--
Though fair and legal yet it is--should be
Impossible to do when snipping from
An Amazon webplayer video.
I offer thus instead this picture of a cat:)

Alas, this is
But one example from Branagh's account.
His cruelest sin of all in this regard
Is his delivery, whereby he fails
To get across Prince Hamlet's wit. In place
Of boyish playfulness he acts anger;
Intense the whole play through, not even with
The players, or Horatio, does his
Intensity e'er wane. In short, he comes
Across as madder than the Prince, methinks,
E'er should. When Hamlet with his wit doth strike,
To Branagh does this seem to signal madness,
And not, in fact, to show how sane the boy remains.

But 'bove all else Branagh never seems to
Be thoughtful or contemplative. These two
Character traits combined are oft what we
Do think of first when first we think of Hamlet.

Be all this as it is, his performance
Remains the best of all the ones I've seen;
For though such madness comes across as wrong
When put in larger frame with all the play,
At least does he do something with the man.
And criticize his film although I might,
He does with Claudius the best I've seen in film.

One more remark on Branagh dear I have.
The fault which he, along with all other
Movies save one do seem to share, lies in
The fair Ophelia.

She's wrong.

So wrong.

To make this clear to all who read me now
I draw attention to the film Gamlet.

This marvelous translation of the Bard
Alas rests far without my plan today.
It dazzles and amazes with its scope
And all its care for history. But 'bove
All else where most it shines is in Ophelia.

Ophelia must have these qual'ties three:
She must be chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
And as a puppet to her father's will.

Thus when her father is by Hamlet sent
Anon to supper with the worms, the girl,
Her brother absent at the time, her love
Rebuked (upon her dad's request), is left
Without a man to pull her strings and give
Her body movement. A pretty puppet,
Nothing more: that's all Ophelia should be.

Yet always in these films she's hideous,
With buckéd teeth and too-large eyes, and no
Clear cause why any man would be in love
With her, except on pain of torture or on death.

Beyond, she's normal, nothing much: a girl
On no point to remark. For Branagh's film
This is a deathly touch. Wherefore comes madness
When Ophelia is but a normal girl?
Always too modern is she made, too free
And liberated from femininity.

When played proper, as in Gamlet
She stands in as a proxy for all young
Women of feudal aristocracy:
So robbed by men of all her agency,
This is, not else, the girl's tragedy.

Act V

And so it is it can be known why I
Think none on screen have ever got the Dane
Quite right. The play is long and full of twists
And though the role be one all actors wish
To play, in fact Hamlet is nothing like
All other tragic 'heroes' of Shakespeare.
Tender is he, sensitive, soft, with wit
Beyond compare: he's thoughtful, playful,
Both cruel and kind; confused and sad, yet brilliant all the same.
Ingenious, choleric as melancholic,
Yet funnier than any man could swear.

Perhaps I be too prideful to proclaim
That in Hamlet I see what others don't;
But yet it is that never have I seen
Him done in just the way he reads to me,
Upon the page, in which I see myself.

One final word, ere I depart, is to
Remark upon how well the Dane has dwelt
Within my mind. For four years since, when e'er
I'm down, I hear his voice in mine, saying,
"Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!"
Or else, "to be, or not to be, that is the question;"
I think, "There's nothing either good or bad
But thinking makes it so;" and always do
I try my best to shine my wit as bright
As his. And thus I think it safe to say:
With Hamlet William Shakespeare bridged the times,
And to this day, the genius in his soul still rhymes.

Between the late '60s and early '00s, British historian, newspaper man, and WWII veteran George Macdonald Fraser wrote and published a series of eleven novels and one short story anthology following the military exploits of Sir Harry Paget Flashman, the infamous bully from the 1857 English classic novel Tom Brown's School Days. It turned out that, after being expelled from Rugby School in the late 1830s, Flashman had joined the 11th Hussars and gone on to become one of England's most decorated war heroes. The Flashman Papers are his purported memoirs. Through Flashman's eyes Fraser explores all of Victorian military history, from the Kabul Retreat to the Boer War. Flashman was there for it all.

It is my belief that Fraser was one of the finest novelists of the 20th century. His books combine comedic genius with meticulously detailed historical drama in a much-plagiarized but seldom-replicated formula. The lying, bullying, toadying, lecherous poltroon Harry Flashman who, by virtue of cowardice and good luck, emerges from each adventure looking like a hero, has inspired copycats all the way into the 41st Millennium. But with Flashman, Fraser uniquely captured the realities of British colonialism, not just in action, but in thought and speech, in a readable modern style that no author will ever be able to fully replicate.

Living Inside History

19th Century historical fiction has become incredibly popular online. Aubrey-Maturin, Sharpe, and Horatio Hornblower are fine series all, and I recommend them. But Flashman is different. Fraser’s slavish dedication to recreating historical narratives through the eyes of his anti-hero makes his novels less like dramatic narratives set in the past, like O’Brian’s Master and Commander or Cornwell’s Sharpe’s Eagle, and more like very funny history textbooks. The depiction of British colonialism is utterly unflinching. Fraser has no shame or hesitation reflecting 19th Century attitudes through Flashman’s speech. It has been said that, at the time of its initial publication, some critics mistook the first novel for a genuine memoir (see citation 3). Fraser, apparently, thought this was laughable, but I don’t think it’s that much of a surprise.

Harry Flashman, his wife Elspeth, his father-in-law John Morrison, and his archnemesis John Charity Spring are the only prominent fictional characters in the series. Nearly everyone else, from ally to antagonist, is a real, historical person, including the majority of the women Flashman beds (and sometimes weds). With the exception of Royal Flash, every moment is historical: every battle, every engagement, every mission and every sword fight is reconstructed from an attested event. When a scene isn't rooted in definite historical fact, it tends to instead be an adaptation of a general historical account--an attack on a stagecoach by Native Americans in the Old West, an encounter with sowars on the road in India.

Flashman gives little exposition. Footnotes and annotations help the reader keep up, but you’ll often need historical context to understand the novels fully. Reading an E-Book version with hyperlinks for names and terms can make the reading experience much improved for this reason.

What makes these novels most spectacular is Fraser's ability to animate the past. He gives voice to the long-dead, letting you empathize with a people who, today, can seem very alien. He is honest when he depicts the horrors of empire and colonialism, and he is honest when he depicts the horrors of its absence, too. It becomes harder for modern people to understand the past with each passing year. Victorian writing can be dense and indecipherable and very dry. Fraser’s isn’t.

When it comes to historical fiction, Flashy is the standard.

They’re Just Good Books

The Flashman Papers aren’t good because they’re historically accurate, though. They’re good because Fraser knew how to write. These twelve novels are filled with horrors that must be read to be imagined. Flashman witnessed every atrocity of the 19th Century, and they are depicted as they really happened.

But the books are comedies.

Fraser always sought out new ways to make his books engaging. He relentlessly satirizes the Victorian era; this is the driving engine of humor throughout the series. But he also endlessly reinvents himself. I enjoyed the Sharpe novels that I read, but Cornwell is a slave to formula. Not Fraser. Despite writing on war and atrocity, despite striving for accuracy, despite never making any meaningful historical errors, he never failed to make his books fun.

Sometimes Flashman renders his dialogue in stageplay format. Why not? It mixes things up. In the sixth book, a significant amount of the narrative is delivered through excerpts from the diary of Flashman’s wife Elspeth. Her prose Reflects the ways In Which a Lady of that Time Period most likely would have Written in Her Diary. It’s wonderful. Flashman, it seems, wrote his memoirs to be full of profanity, but one of his Puritanical Scottish in-laws got her mittens on the manuscripts before publication, censoring the profanity before it could reach our eyes. And the series is filled with footnotes written from the perspective of Fraser himself as the "editor" of the collection (to keep up the charade that Flashman was, in fact, a real person).

So the Flashman Papers are endlessly funny, and always historically accurate. They're also expertly written adventure novels. Fraser takes accounts of real military action and adapts them in Flashy's perspective without ever losing sight of the human stakes and real-world consequences of violence. As a veteran of Burma, Fraser understood what it felt like to fight for one's life. This shows in every book he wrote. Thus when he wants to pull back the comedy, when he wants you to take Flashman seriously during the death march from the Siege of Cawnpore or the butchering of British civilians by Indian mutineers, he will still be able to reduce you to tears.

Series Ranking and Review: A List

None of the Flashman novels are bad. Even the first title on this list is worth reading. The difference between Flashy’s best and worst book is very slim. These rankings are extremely subjective, and I would recommend simply reading them in publication order overall.

But if you're short on time and only want to pick out one or two, this is my take.

#12. Flashman and the Dragon (Book 8)

Flashman and the Dragon is often considered the worst book in the series by Fraser fanatics. This surprised me when I read it: it has an affair with a Chinese empress, lies and deceit and betrayal, high adventure, and a fascinating setting. What more could you want from Flashman?

Revisiting this series (and article) a decade later, this book left almost no impression on me. I can’t remember anything about it. The Empress-Dowager is a retread of much more interesting Oriental femme fatales like Lakshmibai and the Silk One, and the soldiering scenes are simpler and less imaginative than many others. Ultimately, Flashman and the Dragon lacks the bite of the other books; it has nothing exciting that makes it stand out as anything more than a decent historical comedy-adventure novel. It is the only book in the series that feels “by rote.”

#11. Flashman and the Tiger (Book 11)

A collection of short-ish stories and a novella, Flashman and the Tiger sees Flashy meet Sherlock Holmes, ties up a loose thread from Royal Flash, and depicts a sword fight that lasts for about two hundred pages.

Overall, I like the shorter, more plot-focused narratives found within this book. The characters are not Fraser's best, but there are memorable moments throughout--and, to be honest, I think Flashman x Holmes is a lot of fun. He doesn't overdo it.

But like Flashman and the Dragon, Flashman and the Tiger lacks the emotional heights of the earlier books. The best Flashman moments leap unflinchingly into historical tragedy, and there’s no space for that in the more personal narratives presented here. I want to see Flashman embroiled in political schemes, lost within an epic sea of war and action, forced to do great things despite his rotten heart. Here, he mostly just runs away from bad guys and whines a lot.

That can be funny. But it's not much more than that.

#10. Flashman on the March (Book 12)

The final Flashman book, Flashman on the March was written when Fraser was in his 80s. It has one of the series' most interesting settings: the British expedition to Abyssinia, which is a little-known but fascinating (and surreal) piece of Victorian history, handled with the deftness you would expect.

But Fraser's age shows through the pages. The beginning meanders, and his outrage at Bush & Co. for the invasion of Iraq seems to bleed through Flashman's usual irreverent narration. The climax is strong, but it took me more than a year to get to it. I would place Flashman on the March among the best in the series for its subject matter, but among the worst in action, plot, and pacing.

#9. Flash for Freedom (Book 3)

Flash for Freedom sees Flashy shipped off for his first American adventure. The front half of the story takes place onboard an illegal slaving vessel in the Atlantic in the 1840s; the back follows Flashman on land throughout the Antebellum South.

This book, along with the next in the list, is often regarded as Fraser’s finest, and for good reason. The beginning introduces Flashman’s unforgettable arch-nemesis John Charity Spring, and would rank near the top of this list taken on its own. The action is unending and the stakes never let up.

But when Flashman takes up work as a slavedriver on a plantation, has an affair with a villainous Southern aristocrat, and betrays some of the series' most sympathetic characters, we see him at his absolute worst. There is no glamorizing slavery here, and unlike in some later books, Flashman has no redeeming qualities at all. He is really just an awful, evil bastard.

Flash for Freedom is absolutely miserable to read. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it. But maybe only once.

#8. Flashman and the Redskins (Book 7)

Flashman and the Redskins is the longest novel in the series by far, effectively containing both the sequel to Flash for Freedom and a self-contained sequel to that story within a single package. Many consider it Fraser's best novel: it is a beautifully researched adventure through the American West, spanning decades and incorporating just about every character you could hope for. It ties up every loose thread from Flash for Freedom, too.

But as an American, I find that it has very little of the mystery and awe that the Indian adventures (in particular) do. There’s nothing to learn from watching Indians attack a stagecoach through Flashman’s eyes. As a text on history, Flashman and the Redskins is interesting, and amusing, but I never found it instructive. This might be the reason why I prefer the European adventures to the American ones, despite the wider fanbase seeming to have the opposite opinion.

Do not mistake me. Flashman and the Redskins is a fantastic novel. But I think it lacks the magic that the best Flashman books have, that only Flashman can have, and that starts with the next title on this list.

#7. Flashman's Lady (Book 6)

It took me a year to get through the first third of Flashman's Lady and about four hours to get through the rest. This book has several of the series' best action sequences and many of its most interesting historical personas. Queen Ranavalona and the atrocities committed under her rule are unforgettable.

My favorite thing about Flashman’s Lady is that it’s the only novel in the series told in part from another character’s perspective—Flashman’s Lady, Elspeth. It’s also the only book in which Elspeth actually gets to do anything. After five books stuck in Flashman’s head, getting to see him and his world through someone else’s eyes was exactly what the series needed. We wouldn’t get that again until Mr. American.

#6. Flashman and the Mountain of Light (Book 9)

Flashman and the Mountain of Light is the most plot-driven Flashman story, and one of the two major Indian novels. While its flurry of characters can be hard to keep track of, it's a beautifully structured adventure that builds to the finest climax in all of the Flashman Papers. It does everything a Flashman book should, and does so very well.

#5. Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (Book 10)

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord follows Flashman’s participation in John Brown’s suicidal raid on Harper’s Ferry. Its first act also features the last appearance of John Charity Spring, and it’s better than could ever have been hoped for.

This is by far my favorite of the American novels. Whereas Flash for Freedom and Flashman and the Redskins are more about time periods than specific events, anchoring Flashman to John Brown creates a pall over the book that the earlier two lacked, a sense of oncoming tragedy that the Indian novels cultivate so splendidly. Although I could do without the numerous scenes involving the proto-KKK, Brown’s lunatic personality and the utter insanity of his scheme are rendered flawlessly.

No one will ever write a historical novel about Brown better than this.

#4. Royal Flash (Book 2)

Writing retrospectively, Royal Flash would probably have been ranked among my least favorite books in the series. This would have been a mistake. At the time of reading, it was actually my favorite, and it remained so for quite some time. The main plot sees Flashman abducted by Otto von Bismarck so that he can impersonate a princeling and help facilitate the unification of Germany. It is a total farce, and the only Flashman book set in a fictional country, during a fictional geopolitical affair. Bismarck's appearance more than compensates for that deficiency.

As with all of the remaining titles in this ranking, Royal Flash was impossible for me to put down. It consumed my every thought until I'd made it to the final page. There are very few books that do this to me.

#3. Flashman (Book 1)

The original, eponymous entry to the series. Flashman has it all: Indian intrigue, a Duke of Wellington cameo, Queen Victoria, Elspeth and her father, the horrors of war, obscene numbers of sex scenes, and the series' only rape. It's funny, sad, satirical, and haunting, often at the same time. Flashman is not peak Flashman, but it's pretty close. You should, obviously, start here.

#2. Flashman at the Charge (Book 4)

Flashman at the Charge is about the Crimean War and acts as a prelude for the "Great Game," the allegedly imaginary feud between the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom for the control of India.

The Crimean War sections of the book are standard Flashman, executed flawlessly. They're excellent, of course, and the intrigue between Flashy and Lord Cardigan is taken to comedic extremes. But what cements its place at the top (AKA the bottom) of my list is its second half, in which the series' most absurd femme fatale transforms Flashman into a selfless hero through the power of hashish.

But even without its ludicrous third act, Flashman at the Charge is simply the funniest book in the series. It's the Victorian military equivalent of Fargo: a relentless and unfailing pitch-black comedy, where tragedy and parody never fall out of step. Unlike the final book on this list, Flashman at the Charge probably will not make you cry. But it'll certainly make you laugh.

#1. Flashman in the Great Game (Book 5)

Flashman in the Great Game is a direct sequel to At the Charge, picking up more or less where that book leaves off. Its focal point is the Indian Mutiny, and Fraser catalogues the atrocities committed by both sides in excruciating detail. There are flashes of this kind of writing in the other novels, but here, more than anywhere else in the Papers, we witness the horrors of war.

I will never forget the frank narration of the Siege of Cawnpore, or Flashman's harrowing escape from Lucknow. Only a man who had fought and killed in war could have written these scenes.

Flashman in the Great Game is still funny, sometimes. But it’s the least comedic book in the series. It took me several weeks of daily reading to get through it. It’s also harrowing, and gripping, and incredible.

But that isn’t why I love it. What makes this novel so exceptional is that it’s the only time Fraser attempted to expand Flashman’s psychology in a meaningful way. He is, necessarily, a static character, but he’s so much more interesting here than elsewhere. Unlike in Flash for Freedom, where he's a sociopathic monster, the Harry Flashman we see in Great Game is genuinely heroic. He performs selfless acts of valor and endures horrible pain for the sake of his fellow soldiers. He feels true empathy for the people around him.

Of course his style of narration doesn’t change. He stays convinced that he’s a villain. He constantly refers to his own cowardice. But true bravery lies not in failing to feel fear, but in conquering it. That is what Flashman does in this book, and it makes him a fascinating narrator. He possesses a villain complex: he is incapable of seeing himself in a positive light, even when he deserves to.

I don't know how much of that was intentional on Fraser's part. It doesn’t carry forward into the later novels. But I think it's at the core of why I love this book so much. Flashman feels realer and more nuanced here than anywhere else, and when he’s facing down rebellious sepoys, it makes him easy to get behind.

In other words, Flashman in the Great Game takes the anti- out of Flashman’s hero, without making him any less Flashman.

I love this book. I think it’s the best novel I’ve ever read. You should go read it, too.

A Flash of Lightning

Fraser wrote a number of other books. I highly recommend his memoir on the Burma campaign, Quartered Safe Out Here. His other memoir The Light’s On at Signpost is a reflection on his time spent as a screenwriter in Hollywood, mostly, and a screed against political correctness; it’s hard to believe he wrote it almost thirty years ago. His other major novel, Mr. American, is about a rich American cowboy who comes to England and becomes a minor aristocrat. It’s a charming story that’s stuck with me, and I think about it surprisingly often almost ten years later. But it’s also quite long and meandering, and I found it a little dull at the time.

I haven’t read the others. They’re not easy to find anymore. But I’ll get to them eventually, and I’ll update this article when I do.

Oh, and one more thing—the Malcolm McDowell adaptation of Royal Flash? Don't watch it.