| "A Matter of Fact" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Rudyard Kipling | |
 | |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Short story |
| Publication | |
"A Matter of Fact" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling, first appearing in January 1892 in the magazine People. It was published the next year in the collection Many Inventions . [1]
The narrator, presumably Kipling, is a journalist sailing home from South Africa to England. Aboard the steamer are two other passengers he meets, fellow journalists with whom he spends his time. During a thick fog, the pilot experienced an unusual difficulty in steering, owing to strong unnatural currents, which have apparently been caused by a volcanic eruption in the seabed. A resultant colossal wave nearly upsets their vessel, sinking another nearby, and also spews up a great sea monster from the deeps, mortally wounded. It first manifests as an eerie white face, blind and framed in the fog, and the three journalists look on bemused as the monster’s mate surfaces, watches him die, and sinks down again to the seabed.
When the sea is quiet again, the three journalists discuss how they can present this astonishing fact to the public. The Dutch journalist, Zuyland, determines to treat the matter in cool scientific fashion, “giving approximate lengths and breadths, and the whole list of the crew whom he had sworn on oath to testify to his facts”. [1] : 137 However, both he and Kipling soon discard their accounts, realising that their story will never be credited as a simple fact. The American journalist, Keller, also realises the futility of presenting such a story to the cynical public, and in the end Kipling tells them he will print the story as a piece of fiction, where it will get a better reception. Truth, he says, “is a naked lady, and if by accident she is drawn up from the bottom of the sea, it behoves a gentleman either to give her a print petticoat or to turn his back and vow that he did not see”. [1] : 141
A small fragment of the story, read by Kipling himself, was recorded by French researcher Jean Poirot in 1921. [2]
The reaction to the story was mixed. Some complained that the ending wanted polish and was unrealistic. [3] Other contemporary critics lauded the work as a forerunner of English scientifiction. [4]
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
This is a bibliography of works by Rudyard Kipling, including books, short stories, poems, and collections of his works.
The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. The stories are set in a forest in India; one place mentioned repeatedly is "Seeonee" (Seoni), in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
"If—" is a poem by English poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), written circa 1895 as a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson. It is a literary example of Victorian-era stoicism. 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.
Hercule Poirot's Christmas is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 19 December 1938. It retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6).
The Barrack-Room Ballads are a series of songs and poems by Rudyard Kipling, dealing with the late-Victorian British Army and mostly written in a vernacular dialect. The series contains some of Kipling's best-known works, including the poems "Gunga Din", "Tommy", "Mandalay", and "Danny Deever", helping consolidate his early fame as a poet.
The Light That Failed is the first novel by the Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling, first published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in January 1891. Most of the novel is set in London, but many important events throughout the story occur in Sudan and Port Said. It follows the life of Dick Heldar, an artist and painter who goes blind, and his unrequited love for his childhood playmate, Maisie.
The Labours of Hercules is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1947 and in the UK by Collins Crime Club in September of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.50 and the UK edition at eight shillings and sixpence.
"Women and children first", known to a lesser extent as the Birkenhead drill, is a code of conduct whereby the lives of women and children were to be saved first in a life-threatening situation, typically abandoning ship, when survival resources such as lifeboats were limited. However, it has no basis in maritime law.
Plain Tales from the Hills is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty", according to Kipling's Preface, were initially published in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, Punjab, British India between November 1886 and June 1887. "The remaining tales are, more or less, new."
Naulakha, also known as the Rudyard Kipling House, is a historic Shingle Style house on Kipling Road in Dummerston, Vermont, a few miles outside Brattleboro. The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993 for its association with the author Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), who had it built in 1893 and made it his home until 1896. It is in this house that Kipling wrote Captains Courageous, The Jungle Book, The Day's Work, and The Seven Seas, and did work on Kim and The Just So Stories. Kipling named the house after the Naulakha Pavilion, situated inside Lahore Fort in present-day Pakistan. The house is now owned by the Landmark Trust, and is available for rent.
In Black and White is a collection of eight short stories by Rudyard Kipling which was first published in a booklet of 108 pages as no. 3 of A H Wheeler & Co.’s Indian Railway Library in 1888. It was subsequently published in a book along with nos 1 and 2, Soldiers Three (1888) and The Story of the Gadsbys, as Soldiers Three (1899). The characters about whom the stories are concerned are native Indians, rather than the British for writing about whom Kipling may be better known; four of the stories are narrated by the Indians, and four by an observant wise English journalist. The stories are:
"Lispeth" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 29 November 1886; its first appearance in book form was in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and it later appeared in subsequent editions of that collection. The tale is an interesting example of Kipling's attitudes to different races and cultures, which is less simple than many accounts of his beliefs allow.
"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).
Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling.
"The Devil and the Deep Sea" is a short story by the British writer Rudyard Kipling, first published in 1895 in The Graphic's Christmas number. It was collected with other Kipling stories in The Day's Work (1898).
"Fairy-Kist" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It first appeared in Maclean’s Magazine in America in 1927. It was after published in 1928 in England in the Strand Magazine, illustrated by Charles Brock. It finally came out in book format in 1932, in the collection Limits and Renewals.
"In the Neolithic Age" is a poem by the English writer Rudyard Kipling. It was published in the December 1892 issue of The Idler and in 1896 in his poetry collection The Seven Seas. The poem is the source of the quotation: "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, / And every single one of them is right."
Many Inventions is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Twelve of the 14 stories appeared previously in various publications, including The Atlantic Monthly and the Strand Magazine.
The 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the British writer Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author." He is the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and being aged 41, is its youngest recipient to date.