Rotters are us this week. Three thoroughly enjoyable abridgements of George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman Papers have been released: Flashman, Royal Flash (which has just been filmed), and now Flash for Freedom (HarperCollins, CDs, £15.99, offer £14.39).There have been 12 instalments so far of the memoirs of Brigadier-

General Sir Harry Paget Flashman, VC, KCB, which were supposedly found in a trunk in 1969. More are planned before the greatest cad expelled from Rugby School ends the gloriously inglorious career brilliantly imagined for him. Fraser’s achievement parallels that of Patrick O’Brian, in that Flashman’s outrageous antics in and out of bed, at the gaming table and running from a variety of military campaigns are knitted into real history and form a coherent world of their own.

In these three audiobooks, he roams across the world from Afghanistan to New Orleans. He signs up with Lord Cardigan and learns to respect an observant young man called Otto von Bismarck; he plays cards with Lola Montez and Disraeli, and has his bacon saved from Kentucky slavecatchers by Abraham Lincoln.

Although proud to admit to being an arrant coward, he has a gift for blustering his way out of tight corners, even winning an undeserved VC (and sizing up Queen Victoria as she pins it to his chest). Rupert Penry-Jones triumphs as the voice of Flashman, capturing his arrogant sneering ways but also his undoubted charm.

Another sexual adventurer tells his story in The Memoirs of Casanova I (CSA Word, CDs,£15.99, offer £13.49), narrated with insinuating guile by Benedict Cumberbatch. During Casanova’s long life (1725-98) he was involved in high politics in both Church and state all over Europe and in Russia.

This volume goes some way to explaining his character. His father died when he was 7, leaving six children, but his irresistibly attractive mother won fame as an actress, persuading peers and prelates alike to ensure Giacomo’s wellbeing. Casanova presents himself as an attractive rogue, susceptible rather than calculating, and bemused by his numerous and frequently farcical sexual encounters.

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