The Man Who Would Be King

One of Rudyard Kipling’s best short stories, “The Man Who Would Be King” has a fabulous enough plot to captivate even the most avid movie-goer. Told from the point of a view of a narrator who sounds suspiciously like the author himself, “King” is an exciting tale about two adventurers — or con men, depending on your kindness — who have hatched a plan to seek their fortune in Afghanistan, where they will set themselves up as kings. Just as Kipling provided an intimate window into Imperial India, his “King” blends fiction with the British perspective on an exotic and inestimable Middle East.