A Matter of Fact

Three journalists witness the unbelievable. Their biggest problem is not surviving it—it is convincing anyone else that it happened.

Traveling from Cape Town to England aboard a small tramp steamer, three newspapermen expect an uneventful voyage home. Instead, a violent underwater disturbance sends a colossal wave across the sea and brings something extraordinary to the surface.

There, beside the ship, the men witness a massive sea creature unlike anything known to science.

For the journalists, the encounter should be the story of a lifetime. But once the danger has passed, another problem emerges: how do you report a truth so incredible that no reasonable reader will believe it?

As Keller, Zuyland, and the narrator debate evidence, credibility, sensationalism, and the expectations of the newspaper-reading public, Rudyard Kipling turns a fantastic maritime encounter into a sharp and witty meditation on journalism, storytelling, and the strange relationship between fact and fiction.

First published in 1892 and later collected in Many Inventions, A Matter of Fact blends sea adventure, speculative fiction, humor, and literary satire into one of Kipling's most unusual short stories.

Narrated by Paul Landergan.