<p>This collection brings together seventeen of Kipling’s early stories written between 1885 and 1888 when he was working as a journalist in India. Wry comedies of British officialdom alternate with glimpses into the harsh lives of the common soldiers and the Indian poor revealing Kipling’s legendary powers of observation. <span>The title story “The Man Who Would Be King” tells of</span> two British vagabonds who set off to establish a small kingdom among primitive tribesmen in Afghanistan.</p> <p>From Hauksbee’s Simla drawing room to Mulvaney’s barracks cot and the wild hills of Kafiristan Kipling re-creates the India he knew in stories by turns ironic and sentimental compassionate and bitter displaying the brilliance that has captivated readers for over a century.</p> <p>Stories included here are “The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes” “The Phantom Rickshaw” “Gemini” “A Wayside Comedy” “At Twenty-Two” “The Education of Otis Yeere” “The Hill of Illusion” “Dray Wara Yow Dee” “The Judgment of Dungara” “With the Main Guard” “In Flood Time” “Only a Subaltern” “Baa Baa Black Sheep” “At the Pit’s Mouth” “Black Jack” “On the City Wall” and “The Man Who Would Be King.”</p>