“If—” by Rudyard Kipling Read by Michael Caine Submitted by Darren Poley
Darren Poley is the Scholarly Outreach and Theology librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. “If” was first published in 1920 in Kipling’s collection Rewards and Fairies, series of historical fiction short stories with linking contemporary narratives.
In his posthumously published autobiography Something of Myself, Kipling claimed that his poetic inspiration for the poem was based the military service of Leander Starr Jameson, who lead the failed Jameson Raid (December 1895 – January 1896) against South Africa to overthrow the Boer Government.