The Man Who Would be King Annotated

The Man Who Would be King (1888) is a short story by Rudyard Kipling chronicling the adventures of two British men who become kings in Kafiristan (now a province of Afghanistan). The story was first published in The Phantom Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales (1888). It also appeared in Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1895), and numerous later editions of that collection. It has been adapted for other media a number of times.