Should Flashman be read?

I picked up a few of the Flashman series of books on the recommendation of old friends who had read them as children and had greatly enjoyed them back in them ol' days. I settled back expecting some jolly retro "boys only" type adventure stories. I ended up clawing my armrest, upright & pop-eyed with incredulity.

Look I don't know who else have read these tales, more like millions I expect and all undoubtly enjoyed a thundering good yarn.

Flashman is a self confessed liar, coward, lecher & bully who always manages to fall on his feet after becoming personally embroiled in an assortment of history's stickiest situations. A flawed diamond, his heart probably is in the right place although the preoccupation in much of the books is on another portion of his anatomy .

The issue I have is the ideological correctness of much of the work, or rather, the lack of it.

This is got around by the author, George MacDonald Fraser, claiming to have found the papers of the erstwhile Flashman in a box in an attic or cellar thus washing his hands of some of the most blood-curdling racist & sexist sentiments I have ever seen make it to print.

Is this literature available in the USA? I would be especially interested to know if Flash for Freedom, a tale of Flashman's experiences aboard a slave trader made it to the bookshelves there.

I realise the sentiments the character expresses are probably typical of the times, and to their credit, the Flashman books bring to life the history of the times and have a veracity and vibrancy I have not ever encountered in historical fiction.

But beware, politically correct they ain't.

Flashman
Flash for Freedom
by George MacDonald Fraser Pub: Harper Collins ISBN 0 00 651125 2 & ISBN 0 00 651127 9