The Man Who Would Be King

The Man Who Would Be King (1888) is a novella by Rudyard Kipling. It is about two British adventurers in British India who become kings of Kafiristan a remote part of Afghanistan. The story was inspired by the exploits of James Brooke an Englishman who became the first White Rajah of Sarawak in Borneo; and by the travels of American adventurer Josiah Harlan who was granted the title Prince of Ghor in perpetuity for himself and his descendants. It incorporates a number of other factual elements such as the European-like appearance of many Nuristani people and an ending modelled on the return of the head of the explorer Adolf Schlagintweit to colonial administrators.