"The Man Who Would Be King" (1888) is a short story by Rudyard Kipling concerning two 19th century British ex-soldiers now con-men who set off from British India in search of adventure and end up as kings in Kafiristan (now part of Afghanistan). The story was inspired by the exploits of the Englishman James Brooke, who in 1841 became Rajah of the region of Sarawak in Borneo, as well as by the travels of American adventurer Josiah Harlan, who claimed the title Prince of Ghor around 1840, thanks to the military force he led into Afghanistan.
The story was first published in The Phantom Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales (Volume Five of the Indian Railway Library, published by Wheelers of Allahabad in 1888). It also appeared in Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories in 1895, and in numerous later editions of that collection.
A radio adaption was broadcast on the show Escape on July 7, 1947. In 1975, it was adapted into a feature film by director John Huston, starring Sean Connery, Michael Caine and Christopher Plummer as Kipling.
