Richard Connell's short story The Most Dangerous Game also known as The Hounds of Zaroff was first published on January 19 1924 in Collier's. In the narrative a big-game hunter from New York City drowns after falling from a boat and swims to what appears to be a deserted island in the Caribbean. There a Russian aristocrat pursues him. The big-game hunting excursions in Africa and South America that were so popular with affluent Americans in the 1920s served as inspiration for the novel.