ABSTRACT
Little is known of the life of John Renton Denning, who joined the army as a private soldier c. He served in the 1st battalion of the Rifle Brigade, and dedicated his first volume of poetry, Poems and Songs, to the Duke of Connaught, the third son of Queen Victoria, who was colonel in charge of the brigade. Denning's second collection, Soldierin': A Few Military Ballads, brought together poems previously published in the Times of India, the Madras Mail, the Civil and Military Gazette, and the Allahabad Pioneer. Very different in form and tone to the earlier works, they clearly reflect the impact of Rudyard Kipling’s poetry and short stories published in the intervening decade, and particularly his representations of ordinary soldiers.
