Richard Edward Connell Jr. (1893 – 1949) was an American author and journalist, probably best remembered for his short story "The Most Dangerous Game". Connell was one of the most popular American short story writers of his time. He had equal success as a journalist and screenwriter and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1942 for best original story.

Widely anthologized and the author's bestknown work, "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.