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George R. R. Martin's first novel, Dying of the Light (1977) contains a manhunt. This is not a manhunt in the context of law enforcement or a military operation, but refers to a “hunting party” in which a group of hunters tracks down and kills other individuals, as a sort of “sport”; their victims aren't criminals.

When reading this novel, I strongly suspected that this was not the first work of literature using this type of man hunt and I found the short story The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, published in 1924. (This story probably inspired the comic strip De gezellen van Nimrod, published in 1992. The comic strip has a character named Zofar, which is almost an anagram of Zaroff from Connell's story.)

So my question is: is Connell's story the earliest work of literature in English that features this type of “human hunting”, or, if not, what is the earliest example? I am not looking for comic strips.

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  • TV Tropes mentions "The Most Dangerous Game" as the Trope Namer, but that doesn't mean it was the first. Unfortunately, TV Tropes's list of examples doesn't include dates. This article may include some useful info, but it seems to be behind a paywall.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Commented Dec 16, 2019 at 19:02
  • @Randal'Thor I have access to that article, and it does not contain anything useful for this Q. The "two centuries" in the title are the 19th century recently ended and the 20th century recently begun as of the writing of Connell's story.
    – shoover
    Commented May 7, 2022 at 2:47
  • The article's author proposes that the centuries are represented by Zaroff and Rainsford: "For when Sanger Rainsford finally defeats General Zaroff at his own deadly game, it signals the victory of the new century over the old, the triumph of a superior “mode of life” (Spencer 121) over a waning and outdated one. In short, an avatar of the previous century, a time of master and servant, of aristocrat and commoner, is met with extinction at the hands of his successor."
    – shoover
    Commented May 7, 2022 at 2:47

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