The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling

And that's all we know except that no one has gone there, and they fight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King.
 --Kipling, The Man Who Would Be King (1889)

Kipling of course is now seen rather two-dimensionally as a defender of British imperialism.  The truth is slightly more nuanced, even aside from the problem of judging the past by today's standards (Susan Sontag once attacked George Orwell, who wrote fairly and intelligently about Kipling, because, she said, if Orwell had been alive he would have supported the war in Vietnam!).  I don't even think that children these days read The Jungle Book (1894) nor is the poem If (1895) studied much now in junior high:  its reference to being "a man" probably alone disqualifies it.  But for me the novella The Man Who Would Be King shows Kipling's skills as a writer and his ability to write effectively and evocatively about a particular place and time. It starts on a train in India, from Ajmir to Mhow, when the narrator, a newspaper editor, meets Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan, who plan to go to Kafiristan and make themselves kings.  They ask for help with maps. They leave, disguised as a beggar and a priest, and nothing is heard of them for two years, until Peachy returns, crippled and in rags, narrating the story of how they became kings, with fascinating detail about the landscapes and tribes they encountered.  Things go well for a time, as they convince the tribesmen that they are Gods, and then Dravot decides to take a wife, who bites him during the wedding ceremony and all is lost; he bleeds and is not a God after all. Dravot is killed and Peachy is crucified between two pine trees but is released when he doesn't die.  He takes Dravot's head with him and dies shortly after his return to the newspaper office.

The story is beautifully told, with many fascinating details about life in 19th C. India  But it also functions as an allegory about imperialism, as two Englishmen seize control in Kafiristan with their superior firepower and their ability to manipulate the trusting local population.  They, of course, come to a bad end, as would eventually happen to the English throughout their empire.