Richard Connell

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Richard Edward Connell (October 17, 1893 – November 22, 1946) was an American author and journalist, best known for his short story "The Most Dangerous Game."

Connell was born in Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, New York, United States. His father Richard Edward Connell became a representative of the sixty-ninth U.S. Congress in 1911, where he served for one year before his death on October 30, 1912. His love of writing began early. He was so good at writing that, by the age of ten, he was covering baseball games for his father's newspaper for ten cents a game and at 16 he was editing the Poughkeepsie News-Press. He was accepted at Georgetown College in 1909 and stayed there for a year. He worked as a secretary for his father for a time after leaving. Then he enrolled in Harvard University in 1912, after his father died. There he edited the Harvard Crimson and the Harvard Lampoon. He graduated in 1915 and started advertising for a while, then he volunteered to serve in World War I. He became the editor of his camp's paper, Gas Attack, for one year. After the war was over, he traveled and settled in European countries for a time before moving back to California in 1924 with his wife, Louise Herrick Fox, whom he married in 1919.

Richard Connell became a freelance writer in 1919. He wrote several short stories including "A Friend of Napoleon" and "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924), sometimes known as "The Hounds of Zaroff". "The Most Dangerous Game" was awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award in 1924. Connell became one of the best-known American short story writers; his stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's Weekly. He was nominated for an Academy Award for best original story for 1941's Meet John Doe. Connell had equal success as a journalist and screenwriter. He died in Beverly Hills, California at the age of fifty-six of a heart-attack on November 22, 1949.