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Summary

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.

Duration: 34 minutes (00:33:32)
Publishing date: 2026-09-10; Unabridged; Copyright Year: — Copyright Statment: —

• Contemporary Fiction
• Classics
• Short Stories
• Horror