The Speedicut Papers recounts in very frank detail the life, loves, and adventures of Jasper Speedicut?charmer, sexual libertine, reluctant hero, and friend of the self-styled brigadier general Sir Harry Flashman, VC. Comprising a nine-volume series of linked adventures and anecdotes in memoir format, The Speedicut Papers lifts the lid from a veritable cesspit of Victorian and Edwardian upper-class debauchery that makes Downton Abbey look like a vicarage tea party. It is also a unique account of Speedicut's involvement in some of the greatest?and also some long-forgotten?events in the British Empire and beyond during the period of 1821?1915. In Flashman's Secret, the first volume of the saga, Speedicut throws a searchlight onto some very murky corners of the nineteenth century, including the early careers of the notorious courtesan, Lola Montez, and the demon barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd. New insights are also provided into the formation of the IRA, the first Anglo-Afghan War, and the dubious acquisition by the British crown of the Koh-i-Noor diamond. If this were not enough, Flashman's Secret also reveals Nelson's actual last words and the existence of a sinister and murderous secret society at the heart of the British establishment.