The King's Pilgrimage (1922) By Hodder and Stoughton

"The King's Pilgrimage" is a poem and book about the journey made by King George V in May 1922 to visit the World War I cemeteries and memorials being constructed at the time in France and Belgium by the Imperial War Graves Commission. This journey was part of the wider pilgrimage movement that saw tens of thousands of bereaved relatives from the United Kingdom and the Empire visit the battlefields of the Great War in the years that followed the Armistice.

The poem was written by the British author and poet Rudyard Kipling, while the text in the book is attributed to the Australian journalist and author Frank Fox. Aspects of the pilgrimage were also described by Kipling within the short story "The Debt" (1930)

The poem was reprinted in a book published the same year by Hodder & Stoughton. The poem prefaced the book, and lines and stanzas from the poem and from the speech given by the King, were used as epigraphs for the chapters describing the King's journey, and to caption some of the photographs. The book, which was illustrated with black-and-white photographs, sold in "huge numbers". A statement in the book declared that profits from the sale of the book would, at the behest of the King, be donated to the organisations arranging for bereaved relatives to visit the cemeteries and memorials. Also included in the opening pages is a signed letter from the King himself, again mentioning the proposed use of the profits from the book to assist those travelling to visit graves. Following the opening pages, the book proper consists of 34 pages of text, authored by Frank Fox, divided into four sections, with 61 black-and white photographs illustrating the book. The book ends with the text of two telegrams and a letter of thanks sent by the King following his return home. Later reprints of the poem included its use in the opening pages of The Silent Cities, a guide to the Commission's war cemeteries and memorials in France and Flanders, published in 1929.

The spirits of the mighty army of the dead seemed to marshall [...] come to receive the homage of the King, for whom they died, and to hear that in the land which they saved their names will live evermore.

— closing words of the text by Frank Fox in the book The King's Pilgrimage

This book has an unknown inscription on the inside page