In Britain, the first verse is set, in granite setts, into the pavement of the promenade in Westward Ho! in Devon. In India, a framed copy of the poem was affixed to the wall before the study desk in the cabins of the officer cadets at the National Defence Academy at Pune and the Indian Naval Academy at Ezhimala. Eliot included the poem in his 1941 collection A Choice of Kipling's Verse. The British cultural-artifact status of the poem is evidenced by the parodies of the poem, and by its popularity among Britons.

Reception Īs an evocation of Victorian-era stoicism, the ' stiff upper lip' self-discipline that popular culture rendered into a British national virtue and character trait, 'If-' remains a cultural touchstone. The failure of that mercenary coup d'état aggravated the political tensions between the United Kingdom and the Boers, which led to the Second Boer War (1899–1902). In his posthumously published autobiography, Something of Myself (1937), Kipling said that, in writing the poem, he was inspired by the character of Leander Starr Jameson, leader of the failed Jameson Raid against the South African Republic to overthrow the Boer government of Paul Kruger. 'If-' first appeared in the 'Brother Square Toes' chapter of the book Rewards and Fairies, a collection of Kipling's poetry and short-story fiction published in 1910. The poem, first published in Rewards and Fairies (1910) following the story 'Brother Square-Toes', is written in the form of paternal advice to the poet's son, John. It is a literary example of Victorian-era stoicism.

' If-' is a poem by English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), written circa 1895 as a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson.

Just so rudyard kipling