The General Danced at Dawn

Private McAuslan was ‘the biggest walking disaster to hit the Army’. Loosely based on his own experiences in a Scottish regiment, and written with rare humour, a sense of the ludicrous and real affection for soldiering, the first volume of George MacDonald Fraser’s McAuslan trilogy now finally comes to life on audio.



Private McAuslan, J. – the Dirtiest Soldier in the World (alias the Tartan Caliban) – demonstrates his unfitness for military service in this first volume of stories of life in a Scottish regiment. Unkempt, ungainly and unwashed, civilian readers may regard him with shocked disbelief. But generations of ex-servicemen have hailed him with delight as a familiar friend – because every old soldier can remember a McAuslan!


McAuslan first shambled into public view – manfully swinging his right arm in time with his right leg – in George MacDonald Fraser’s THE GENERAL DANCED AT DAWN in 1970. Greeted with laughter and great affection (and spawning two sequels and a TV adaptation), these hilarious memoirs of life in a Highland regiment after the last war capture the exploits and misadventures of life in the British Army.


Based on MacDonald Fraser’s own experiences in the Border Regiment and the Gordon Highlanders, which took him to India, Africa and the Middle East, these stories demonstrate the celebrated author of the swashbuckling FLASHMAN series at his hilarious best.