Poetry

Barrack-Room Ballads

by Rudyard Kipling

Poems in the voice of the British private soldier, published as a book in 1892: “Danny Deever”, “Tommy”, “Gunga Din”, “Mandalay” and the rest. Kipling wrote them in the soldiers’ own Cockney, dropped aitches and all, and they were a sensation when they first appeared in magazines in 1890. Readers who think they know his views on empire are often surprised by how much of the anger here is on the soldiers’ side.

The librarian

Read it in the Library After Dark Or read it as plain text

Reading time

About 1 hr 5 min

Where to find it

On the Poetry shelves

Edition

Project Gutenberg, eBook #2819. In the public domain in the United States.