 The original story containing the problem was reprinted in full in Clifton Fadiman's 1962 anthology "The Mathematical Magpie", a book that the Mathematical Association of America recommends for acquisition by undergraduate mathematics libraries.Numerous variants which vary the number of sailors, monkeys, or number of coconuts awarded to the monkey(s) have appeared in the literature.A Diophantine problem
Diophantine analysis is the study of 
equations with rational coefficients 
requiring integer solutions.