The Man Who Would Be King - Unabridged
()
About this ebook
"The Man Who Would Be King" is an enormously popular story by the legendary British writer, poet and journalist Rudyard Kipling. In the tale, the narrator - a British newspaperman in India modeled after Kipling himself - meets two ex-military rogues named Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan who have grand ambitions. They plan to load up
Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English author and poet who began writing in India and shortly found his work celebrated in England. An extravagantly popular, but critically polarizing, figure even in his own lifetime, the author wrote several books for adults and children that have become classics, Kim, The Jungle Book, Just So Stories, Captains Courageous and others. Although taken to task by some critics for his frequently imperialistic stance, the author’s best work rises above his era’s politics. Kipling refused offers of both knighthood and the position of Poet Laureate, but was the first English author to receive the Nobel prize.
Read more from Rudyard Kipling
Classic Children's Stories (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Christmas Library: 250+ Essential Christmas Novels, Poems, Carols, Short Stories...by 100+ Authors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Just So Stories: Level 1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kim Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kipling: 'If–' and Other Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKim Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jungle Book: Level 1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mowgli of the Jungle Book: The Complete Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSomething Of Myself: For My Friends Known And Unknown Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Victorian Mystery Megapack: 27 Classic Mystery Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/520 Eternal Masterpieces Of Children Stories (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Short Stories Of Rudyard Kipling: "He travels the fastest who travels alone." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMother's Day Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassic Starts®: The Jungle Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling: All novels, short stories, letters and poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry Of Rudyard Kipling Vol.1: "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greatest Christmas Stories: 120+ Authors, 250+ Magical Christmas Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings30 Occult & Supernatural masterpieces you have to read before you die (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Who Would Be King and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plain Tales from the Hills Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Man Who Would Be King - Unabridged
Related ebooks
The Man Who Would Be King (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Who Would Be King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man Who Would Be King: A Short Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRudyard Kipling: The Best Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Who Would Be King Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Top 10 Short Stories - Rudyard Kipling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Who Would be King - Rudyard Kipling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShort Stories About Trickery & Deception: Tales of manipulation, broken promises and tests of faith Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Top 10 Short Stories - The 19th Century - The English Men Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories by English Authors: The Orient (Selected by Scribners) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Who Would be King Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTen Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCaves of Terror Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Prince of Swindlers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuspicion Aroused Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dickens Boy: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Exploits of Airman Hay Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Notes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lawman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhen I Was Czar Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmbush of the Mountain Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At the Sign of the Eagle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Red Year: A Story of the Indian Mutiny Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn the Name of the People Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVampire: Vlad V, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJerome K Jerome - Six of the Best Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Thirty-Nine Steps Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTunnel 6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
General Fiction For You
The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anonymous Sex Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Sister's Keeper: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Man Who Would Be King - Unabridged
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Man Who Would Be King - Unabridged - Rudyard Kipling
The Man Who Would be King
Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy.
The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King and was promised the reversion of a Kingdom—army, law-courts, revenue and policy all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear that my King is dead, and if I want a crown I must go and hunt it for myself.
The beginning of everything was in a railway train upon the road to Mhow from Ajmir. There had been a deficit in the Budget, which necessitated travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions in the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty; or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not patronize refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside water. That is why in the hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon.
My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached Nasirabad, when a huge gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated taste for whiskey. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days’ food. If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the crows where they’d get their next day’s rations, it isn’t seventy millions of revenue the land would be paying—it’s seven hundred million,
said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed to agree with him. We talked politics—the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from the underside where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off—and we talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram back from the next station to Ajmir, which is the turning-off place from the Bombay to the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no money beyond eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at all, owing to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was going into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to help him in any way.
We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick,
said my friend, but that’d mean inquiries for you and for me, and I’ve got my hands full these days. Did you say you are travelling back along this line within any days?
Within ten,
I said.
Can’t you make it eight?
said he. Mine is rather urgent business.
I can send your telegram within ten days if that will serve you,
I said.
I couldn’t trust the wire to fetch him now I think of it. It’s this way. He leaves Delhi on the 23d for Bombay. That means he’ll be running through Ajmir about the night of the 23d.
But I’m going into the Indian Desert,
I explained.
Well and good,
said he. You’ll be changing at Marwar Junction to get into Jodhpore territory—you must do that—and he’ll be coming through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the Bombay Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? ’Twon’t be inconveniencing you because I know that there’s precious few pickings to be got out of these Central India States—even though you pretend to be correspondent of the Backwoodsman.
Have you ever tried that trick?
I asked.
"Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you get escorted to the Border before