"The Most Dangerous Game", also published as "The Hounds of Zaroff", is a short story by Richard Connell,[1] first published in Collier's on January 19, 1924.[2] The story features a big-game hunter from New York City who falls off a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is hunted by a Russian aristocrat.[3] The story is inspired by the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were particularly fashionable among wealthy Americans in the 1920s.[4]
The story has been adapted numerous times, most notably as the 1932 RKO Pictures film The Most Dangerous Game, starring Joel McCrea and Leslie Banks,[5] and for a 1943 episode of the CBS Radio series Suspense, starring Orson Welles.[6] It has been called the "most popular short story ever written in English." Upon its publication, it won the O. Henry Award.[3]
Richard Connell
Born
Richard Edward Connell Jr.
October 17, 1893
Poughkeepsie, New York
Died
November 22, 1949 (aged 56)
Beverly Hills, California
Author, journalist
Richard Edward Connell Jr. (October 17, 1893 – November 22, 1949) was an American author and journalist. He is best remembered for his short story "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924). Connell was one of the most popular American short story writers of his time, and his stories were published in The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's magazines. He had equal success as a journalist and screenwriter, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1942 (Best Original Story) for the movie Meet John Doe (1941), directed by Frank Capra and based on his 1922 short story "A Reputation".