Some of Kipling’s most stirring – if Imperial – verse are in this edition that shows how closely he could get alongside of the troopers and solders of Queen Victoria’s “little wars”, encapsulating their speech, manners, courage and concerns.

The first verse of his ”Departmental Ditties” outlines Kipling’s constant, and rarely disputed, claim to be close enough to his subject to reflect its truth.

”I have eaten your bread and salt, I have drunk your water and wine, The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives that ye lived were mine.”

He really did “live those lives”, spending years in the North West Frontier and Army camps of India, firstly as a child then as a journalist and author. Many of these classic Kipling pieces were written during his career as a newspaper editor, as columns for the paper and were written after his trips and visits to the troops and Indian Government ‘stations’.

This edition has the gold-standard classics for which Kipling may best be known –(“on the road to”) Mandalay, The Widow at Windsor, Gunga Din, and his Ballads of East and West and Arithmetic on the Frontier, that is one of my personal favorites.

”A scrimmage in a Border Station – A canter down some dark defile –Two thousand pounds of education Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—The Crammer’s boast, the Squadrons pride, Shot like a rabbit in a ride!”

Also included is the most controversial, the oft derided Fuzzy Wuzzy, considered now to be no more than a racist rant. Ironically, the only person I ever met who knew it by heart was an Ethiopian surgeon friend who assured me that it was popularly understood to be complimentary by those same ‘fuzzies’ of his country. Any reading confirms this, if you have a basis of the English vernacular, the lines makes clear the British soldier’s admiration …

”Then ’ere’s to you, Fuzzy Wuzzy, the missus and the kids” and expresses the incredulous bravery of spears against Martini-Henrys and records that fact that these primitive warriors were the ONLY troops to have ever broken a British square.

I think that browsing through Kipling’s verses as he recounts the real life of “Tommy”, his officers and the period of which he writes makes very enjoyable reading, and gives a very deep historical insight into the peoples of the Raj through the rather neglected medium of verse. I can recommend this book even to those who dislike (or think they dislike) poetry.

Title page reads "Barrack Room Ballads and Departmental Ditties".
Also contains "Other Verses".