Barrack-Room Ballads (1892) is a collection of poems by Rudyard Kipling, written in the voice of ordinary British soldiers. It includes Gunga Din, Danny Deever, Tommy and Mandalay, and The Ballad of East and West.
The voice of Tommy Atkins
Kipling gives the word to the private soldier, nicknamed Tommy Atkins, in his own cockney speech, with dropped aitches and slang. The soldiers complain, grieve, joke and remember.
In Tommy, a soldier protests that he is scorned in peacetime and praised only when war comes.
Famous poems
Danny Deever describes a regiment watching the hanging of one of their own; Gunga Din praises the courage of an Indian water-carrier who dies saving a soldier.
Mandalay is the dream of a former soldier in rainy London, longing for Burma and a Burmese girl. The Ballad of East and West tells of an Afghan raider and an English officer's son who come to respect each other.
Reception
Many of the poems first appeared in the Scots Observer in 1890, edited by W. E. Henley, and made the young Kipling famous in London.
Mandalay was set to music by Oley Speaks in 1907 and recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1958 as On the Road to Mandalay.
Anecdotes
A misread line
The opening line of The Ballad of East and West is often quoted as meaning that East and West can never meet, but the stanza goes on to say that they do, when two strong men stand face to face.
Sinatra and the Kipling estate
Frank Sinatra's swinging version of Mandalay, with its altered words, displeased Kipling's heirs, who reportedly had it banned in Britain for a time.
Frequently asked questions
Who speaks in Barrack-Room Ballads?
Mostly ordinary British soldiers, in their own dialect.
Which famous poems are in the collection?
Gunga Din, Danny Deever, Tommy, Mandalay and The Ballad of East and West.
Where did the poems first appear?
Many in the Scots Observer, edited by W. E. Henley, in 1890.