Rudyard Kipling remains one of the most iconic voices of late Victorian and Edwardian poetry. His verse—musical, direct, and often unsettling—articulated ideals of duty, empire, and sacrifice with a clarity few poets have matched. This selection gathers his most influential and controversial works, including Gunga Din, Tommy, Mandalay, Recessional, The White Man’s Burden, and If—.

Long admired for their immediacy and impact, yet condemned for their political outlook, these poems deserve renewed consideration. Rather than evading the more contentious aspects of Kipling’s vision, this edition foregrounds them, presenting a poet whose themes have resonated with a renewed illiberal right. An extended critical essay analyses Kipling’s poetic craft while offering a sympathetic reassessment of his convictions. The result is a collection that confronts Kipling whole, both as a craftsman of verse and as a moral voice—of his age, but also for our own.