The Finest Story in the World by Rudyard Kipling

A struggling writer meets a young bank clerk who, under hypnosis and dreams, recalls vivid details of past lives as a Viking and a galley slave. Fascinated, the writer tries to shape these fragments into fiction but finds the material elusive and uncontrollable. The plot explores the nature of storytelling, memory, and creative obsession. Kipling blurs the lines between reincarnation and inspiration. A metafictional tale about the price of the perfect story.