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Barrack-Room Ballads
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Barrack-Room Ballads

work by Kipling
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History

Barrack-Room Ballads, collected poems by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1892 and subsequently republished in expanded form. Included were such well-known previously published verses as “Danny Deever,” “Gunga Din,” and “Mandalay.” The book was a popular success and made Kipling a power among contemporary poets.

Many of the poems are rendered in a Cockney dialect. They all concern the British enlisted man, the soldier who defends the British Empire but is scorned because of his low birth.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.