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99th out of 954 books
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2,498 voters
The Most Dangerous Game
"The Most Dangerous Game" features as its main character a big-game hunter from New York, who becomes shipwrecked on an isolated island in the Caribbean and is hunted by a Russian aristocrat.
The story is an inversion of the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were fashionable among wealthy Americans in the 1920s.
One of the suspects in the Zodiac killi...more
The story is an inversion of the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were fashionable among wealthy Americans in the 1920s.
One of the suspects in the Zodiac killi...more
Paperback, 48 pages
Published
July 1st 2006
by Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.
(first published 1924)
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Nov 17, 2011
Stephen
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Shelves:
thriller,
ebooks,
audiobook,
literature,
classics-americas,
classics,
survival,
1900-1929,
short-fiction
A Goodreads Pop Quiz:
QUESTION: What do Gilligan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Homer Simpson and this Star Trek alien** have in common?
ANSWER (select the one that best applies):
1. None of them could act their way out of a puff of smoke.
2. They all starred in adaptations of Richard Connell’s famous short story “The Most Dangerous Game.”
3. They are all very happy NOT to be Jan Michael Vincent.
4. All of the above.
Yes, it was an easy, soft ball of a question; the correct answer is 4.
**Removing the last...more
QUESTION: What do Gilligan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Homer Simpson and this Star Trek alien** have in common?
ANSWER (select the one that best applies):
1. None of them could act their way out of a puff of smoke.
2. They all starred in adaptations of Richard Connell’s famous short story “The Most Dangerous Game.”
3. They are all very happy NOT to be Jan Michael Vincent.
4. All of the above.
Yes, it was an easy, soft ball of a question; the correct answer is 4.
**Removing the last...more
My favorite part of this 1924 story was a brief but satisfying cameo appearance by BORSCH, as in "the rich, red soup with whipped cream so dear to Russian palates". Excuse me for a second while I salivate.
"Great sport, hunting."Rainsford is a hunter who (very conveniently for the plot purposes of this very compact story) utters statements such as, "The world is made up of two classes—the hu...more
"The best sport in the world," agreed Rainsford.
"For the hunter," amended Whitney. "Not for the jaguar."
25 likes
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Nov 18, 2011
Karla (Mossy Love Grotto)
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Karla (Mossy Love Grotto) by:
Stephen
It's been awhile since I've seen the 1930s movie version with Joel McCrea, but I think I like the story better by virtue of the lack of padding that was done to make it a feature film. The story itself is a lean and mean little tale of terror, with a simple moral of hunter becoming the hunted and a final sentence that caps it off brilliantly.
6 likes
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The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
4 stars
4 stars
The Most Dangerous Game is a short story about a hunter who falls overboard and ends up on an isolated island where he discovers a mansion that looks like a castle. The owner of the mansion is a hunter as well and he wants to hunt play the most dangerous game with Rainsford. I had to read this for school and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It’s a wonderful short story with vivid pictures of the island and the way the story is told is suspe
...more
4 likes
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I read this in college, in a "Lit" class. It was one of those exercises where the Professor gives you two stories and your supposed to compare them "qualitatively". I don't remember what the second story was, I found this one vastly superior...and really "ticked off" the prof. You see, I was 30 when I went back to school to get a degree and apparently didn't have the "proper deference" for the professor's....position. The man was an elitist snob who was impressed enough with himself for all of u...more
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I read this short story in an English class, and it had the desired effect of chilling me to the bone.
If you're reading this for pleasure, beware: it is more of a horror story than an adventure. For that reason it's also hard to enjoy, much less read again. The very nature of it - humans hunting each other for pleasure - defies humanity. Like The Hunger Games, I don't think I could recommend this book to anyone without regretting it.
But despite the insanity, I appreciated Connell's writing abili...more
If you're reading this for pleasure, beware: it is more of a horror story than an adventure. For that reason it's also hard to enjoy, much less read again. The very nature of it - humans hunting each other for pleasure - defies humanity. Like The Hunger Games, I don't think I could recommend this book to anyone without regretting it.
But despite the insanity, I appreciated Connell's writing abili...more
Don't ask me why, but since I read this in the 9th grade, I've been deeply affected by it. Something about man being portrayed as the hunted rather than the hunter is terrifying, and not in the done-to-death slasher movie type of way that half of us love nostalgically and the other half is just plain sick of. The premise is that the narrater is thrown overboard in a storm, washes ashore an island inhabited by a rich gamesman who hunts 'the most dangerous game' in the world: humans. The word "Gam...more
Mar 27, 2009
Adam
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
action-adventure,
fiction
I recently saw the 1932 film version of this story, and I really enjoyed it. Leslie Banks, who plays Zaroff, the eccentric Russian gentleman who hunts humans for sport on his own private island, gives a wonderfully hammy performance, Fay Wray is gorgeous, and Joel McCrea is a total stud. It was great, so I thought I'd check out the story it was based on.
Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" is a great read. It actually has fewer characters than the movie, and moves more quickly. It's one o...more
Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" is a great read. It actually has fewer characters than the movie, and moves more quickly. It's one o...more
It’s clear that this short story was a journey for the author writing it. It’s like before writing this Connell asked himself, “What if I were to meet the devil?”. Writing enables you to dream up events that would never happen in real life. Another good example is Crime and Punishment, where the protagonist kills a relatively innocent pawn-broker, which allows Dostoevsky to work through that predicament as if he were the protagonist.
The metaphor that played through my mind was the general as a g...more
The metaphor that played through my mind was the general as a g...more
I read this for school a few years ago, and although I hadn’t read it again until last night, this story has stuck with me.
It’s a cunning little story, something that sounds like I would write… it has a round-about way of saying things, without directly stating what’s going on. Most of it is implied and adds to its level of macabre suspense. The setting and the character of Rainsford remind me vividly of The Island of Dr. Moreau. General Zaroff also reminds me a bit of the island dwelling mad sc...more
It’s a cunning little story, something that sounds like I would write… it has a round-about way of saying things, without directly stating what’s going on. Most of it is implied and adds to its level of macabre suspense. The setting and the character of Rainsford remind me vividly of The Island of Dr. Moreau. General Zaroff also reminds me a bit of the island dwelling mad sc...more
Having not read it in a while, my skewed rating is 3.5.
I would suggest this to anyone. It's quite a short story and worth it to read, with a grain of salt. It makes you think definitely, and there are many meanings in it that, if they're caught sight of, are both entertaining and thoughtful.
This is the type of rough and tough story I wouldn't usually read, as hunting doesn't appeal to me, but I'm glad it was chosen for my advanced English class. I read it about two years ago now, but it sticks w...more
I would suggest this to anyone. It's quite a short story and worth it to read, with a grain of salt. It makes you think definitely, and there are many meanings in it that, if they're caught sight of, are both entertaining and thoughtful.
This is the type of rough and tough story I wouldn't usually read, as hunting doesn't appeal to me, but I'm glad it was chosen for my advanced English class. I read it about two years ago now, but it sticks w...more
Oddly enough, this morning my husband and I were watching a show on Robert Hanson, the serial killer that hunted and murdered women in Alaska as if they were prey. That led to a discussion about a book that he remembered reading (I use that term loosely, since he is not a big reader, but more of a skimmer) back in high school. He couldn't remember the name of the book, but he swore it had something to do with games (he even suggested The Hunger Games at one point - lol) and there was a picture o...more
An excellent short story of about 8000 words that I read every decade or so & still get a thrill out of. It should be well known by everyone after all the movies, acknowledgements, & outright rip-offs of the plot. If you don't know it, it is a must-read & is available for free here:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Mos...
There is a scary amount of realism to the story, especially in the time that it was written. Best - or possibly worst - is how easy it is for me to understand the Ge...more
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Mos...
There is a scary amount of realism to the story, especially in the time that it was written. Best - or possibly worst - is how easy it is for me to understand the Ge...more
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I recently revisited this short story by Connell with my L.A. class. Funny, my memory of the story was much different than the actual read. I had recalled being overwhelmed with suspense, captivated by the hunt. When in all reality, the writing of the hunt was good, but not great.
Connell does a nice job at developing an unsettling mood. The fall from the boat and large home on the island all add to a level of creepy that moves the story the forward. The characterization of the antagonist was pr...more
Connell does a nice job at developing an unsettling mood. The fall from the boat and large home on the island all add to a level of creepy that moves the story the forward. The characterization of the antagonist was pr...more
"The Most Dangerous Game" features as its main character a big-game hunter from New York, who falls off a yacht and swims to an isolated island in the Caribbean, and is hunted by a Russian aristocrat. The story is an inversion of the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were fashionable among wealthy Americans in the 1920s.
Sanger Rainsford and his hunting companion Whitney are traveling to the Amazon forest to hunt the fabled big cat of that region, the jaguar. After a discu...more
Sanger Rainsford and his hunting companion Whitney are traveling to the Amazon forest to hunt the fabled big cat of that region, the jaguar. After a discu...more
When a hunter is about to press the trigger and end the life of his target, is it really possible for the hunted to feel the fear of pain and death? According to this short-story, animals do have emotions of fear when placed near the cliff of death. Rainsford, the main character of the story,first perceived this statement to be false. However, after falling off his ship and incidentally drifting off to an island of mystery, everything changes for him. In the island, he meets a hunter like him,...more
This is clearly a short-story that has fallen out of the mainstream as of late and from my understanding it is not on many 'required reading' lists for students anymore as it used to be. I spoke to two different English teachers that I know, and both had not just never read it, but also never heard of it. I guess stranger things can happen.
Like falling out of a boat, swimming to shore and meeting a socially isolated ego-maniacal psychopath. But was Zaroff really a psychopath in modern terms, as...more
Hunting as an epicurean art, and the hunting of man, by man, its pinnacle. The much-vaunted human quality, reason, as opposed to mere animal instinct, is what makes people both noble and dangerous. That's the premise of this famous tale, an enjoyable, lightning fast nail-biter suspense story that trades gravitas for brevity and narrative economy. Connell pulls out everything one expects from the bag of gothica: gnarled branches and fog and gargoyle door knockers. (In case you didn't catch it, th...more
Rainsford: I've always thought that the Cape buffalo is the most dangerous of all big game.
General: No. You are wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game. Here in my preserve on this island, he said in the same slow tone - I hunt more dangerous game.
Rainsford expressed his surprise: Is there big game on this island?
The General nodded: The biggest.
Rainsford: What have you imported, general? Tigers?
The General smiled: No. Hunting tigers ceased to interest me some years ago....more
General: No. You are wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game. Here in my preserve on this island, he said in the same slow tone - I hunt more dangerous game.
Rainsford expressed his surprise: Is there big game on this island?
The General nodded: The biggest.
Rainsford: What have you imported, general? Tigers?
The General smiled: No. Hunting tigers ceased to interest me some years ago....more
Of the four short stories I read in 9th grade English honors, "The Most Dangerous Game" would be my third favorite of the four. It's a creative story, but not overly well-written or anything. Rainsford is a famous hunter of jaguars who isn't sympathetic towards his game, and doesn't think it really matters that he's killing animals. He falls off a boat during a trip around the Caribbean and ends up on a mysterious island, where he is greeted by a Russian general named Zaroff. Zaroff owns the isl...more
Like many people of a certain age, I read most of these eight stories in school. I never forgot some of them and recently had an urge to reread them. This slim volume brought back the same thrills I experienced decades ago. The stories are each well-crafted classics, worth reading and rereading. If you (or your kids) have never encountered them, give them a try. Arguably, the most famous of the stories is "The Most Dangerous Game", which has been filmed several times under different names, but "...more
Short stories are an underappreciated art form. Most people praise long novels for their ability to hold a reader's attention and create a graceful story arc, but I think it's just as challenging to tell a fully developed story in a small number of pages.
"The Most Dangerous Game" is one of those short stories that stays with you for years after you have read it. I put it in the same class as Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," which is another story you can never forget. Connell's story is one you...more
"The Most Dangerous Game" is one of those short stories that stays with you for years after you have read it. I put it in the same class as Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," which is another story you can never forget. Connell's story is one you...more
I really loved this short story. Ransford was the protagonist and changed many times throughout the story. He started the story out by being a courageous hunter acting like the animals have no feelings. After being thrown over the ship into the icy water, I believe just that made him a little bit softer. After meeting the general he learns about the hunted men. He considers this murder, as do I, and next thing he knows he is one of the men being hunted. As he set out to hide while the hunter pre...more
This short story is one of the most influential stories during my high school career. This book talks about the morals of violence. The protagonist, Rainsford, is a man who disfavors violence. He trapped in a "game" and has to either kill General Zarroff, the antagonist, or find a way to escape. Rainsford is a strategic man, and ends up killing Zarroff's subordinate, Ivan. At the end of the story, Rainsford outsmarts the general, and defeats him in a duel, leaving the Zarroff the be torn apart b...more
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This book is truly a great short piece of fiction, but as frequently happens, has some big holes. That it is a manly hunting tale with jungle survival, traps, and guns still makes it a worthy read, the fact that the words "yacht" "pipe" and "hunting" are in this book make it appeal to me immediately. The fast pace is great, but as an outdoorsman I can tell you the speed with which Rainsford whips up some of these traps is as unbelievable but nonetheless cool as the alien-traps in Predator.
How ca...more
How ca...more
Throughout his most popular story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” Richard Connell allows the reader ominous predictions of the future and disjointed recurring thoughts to generate overwhelming despair. He effectively uses foreboding and repetition to produce a legendary account of his characters exploits.
Connell uses foreshadowing to give the reader a desolate view of the Rainsford’s fate. While discussing hunting with Whitney, Rainsford declares sarcastically, “Who cares how the jaguar feels?” Whil...more
Connell uses foreshadowing to give the reader a desolate view of the Rainsford’s fate. While discussing hunting with Whitney, Rainsford declares sarcastically, “Who cares how the jaguar feels?” Whil...more
Ok, first I have to brag that I got a kindle as an early birthday present from my parents. Second, I have to brag that my husband (a non-reader) told me to read this book because he really liked it. So I downloaded it while lying in bed one morning, handed my Kindle to my husband, and he read it. So for days now he's been asking if I've read it so we can talk about it.
This book takes place during the 1920's soon after WWI. Sangor Rainsford is an avid hunter on his way to Rio to hunt Jaguar when...more
This book takes place during the 1920's soon after WWI. Sangor Rainsford is an avid hunter on his way to Rio to hunt Jaguar when...more
Love this story. My first exposure to it was on the Selected Shorts compilation Timeless Classics, which is a 5-star collection if there ever was one. Seriously. Go buy it. The Most Dangerous Game is a story that is really elevated by an amazing performance, such as the one on this disc.
I actually had it on in the car one day while giving a friend a ride home and as we pulled up to his house he asked me pleadingly if we couldn't just sit for a minute and finish it up. So for 10 minutes we sat i...more
I actually had it on in the car one day while giving a friend a ride home and as we pulled up to his house he asked me pleadingly if we couldn't just sit for a minute and finish it up. So for 10 minutes we sat i...more
Obviously a tight and well-crafted story that could also have been presented in first person..for possibly greater effect, IMHO. Then again, the way the writer wrote it in third person, it worked well enough to find a world of readers for many decades . Not taking away from Connell's presentation in any way, but as a reader with some personal caution, putting myself in the protagonist's place, I'd never climbed up on the rail of a moving boat. However, if that had not happened, there might never...more
I picked up this short story because of a discussion I was having about Predator (I was in an argument about IP actually). As I was discussing, I suddenly realized that Predator was The Most Dangerous Game. I was surprised to realize just how close Predator came to the original story. Granted a 1 hour story (I listen to pretty much everything) is going to take some fluff to make into a feature length movie out of it, but much of the hunt between the Predator and Dutch (Arnie) seemed lifted direc...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What's The Name o...: man stranded on private island - killing game? Possible short story [SOLVED] [s] | 6 | 52 | Mar 09, 2013 05:23am | |
| Classic Horror Lo...: The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell *Spoilers* | 2 | 14 | Oct 16, 2011 09:17am |
Richard Edward Connell, Jr. was an American author and journalist, best known for his short story "The Most Dangerous Game." Connell was one of the best-known American short story writers of his time and his stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's Weekly. Connell had equal success as a journalist and screenwriter. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1942 for best original...more
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“There is no greater bore than perfection.”
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11 people liked it
“The world is made up of two classes - the hunters and the huntees.”
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6 people liked it
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Nov 29, 2011 05:52pm
Nov 29, 2011 06:15pm