The Hounds of Zaroff

"The Most Dangerous Game"
Author	Richard Connell
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Adventure fiction
Published in	Collier's
Publication type	Periodical
Publication date	January 19, 1924

"The Most Dangerous Game", also published as "The Hounds of Zaroff", is a short story by Richard Connell, first published in Collier's on January 19, 1924. The story features a big-game hunter from New York City who falls off a yacht and swims to a what seems to be abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is hunted by a Russian aristocrat. 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.

The story has been adapted numerous times, but most notably for the 1932 RKO Pictures film The Most Dangerous Game, starring Joel McCrea and Leslie Banks, and for a 1943 episode of the CBS Radio series Suspense, starring Orson Welles.

Sanger Rainsford and his friend, Whitney, are traveling to the Amazon rainforest to hunt the region's big cat: the jaguar. After a discussion about how they are "the hunters" instead of "the hunted", Whitney goes to bed and Rainsford remains on deck. While Whitney returns to his quarters Rainsford hears gunshots and climbs onto the yacht's rail to get a better view of the nearby Ship-Trap Island, but accidentally falls overboard due to almost losing his most favored pipe. After screaming for Whitney with no response, he realizes he cannot swim back to the yacht, he swims to Ship-Trap Island, which is notorious for shipwrecks. On the island, he finds a palatial chateau inhabited by two Cossacks: the owner, General Zaroff, and his gigantic deaf-mute servant, Ivan.

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