R v Dudley and Stephens of them subsequently being cannibalised by their fellow seamen. Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket", published in 1838, features a character named Richard Parker, who, after a shipwreck, becomes a victim of cannibalism by the ship's remaining survivors. Writer Yann Martel in his 2001 novel "Life of Pi" picked up on these occurrences, and named the book's shipwrecked Bengal tiger Richard Parker. The case was also the basis for a famous Monty Python sketch, titled "Lifeboat (Cannibalism)/Still no Sign of Land". In that sketch, five sailors are on a lifeboat after a shipwreck,
Richard Parker (colonel) Richard Parker (colonel) Richard Parker (1751 – 8 May 1780) was an American colonel who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Son of prominent Virginia jurist Richard Parker, Parker received an officer's commission in a Virginia regiment early in the conflict. He probably was present at Great Bridge and Norfolk. Promoted to major, he fought at Trenton in December 1776 and commanded the regiment at Second Trenton and Princeton in January 1777. At Brandywine in September 1777 he led a detachment of light infantry in delaying the British. The next month he fought at Germantown. Promoted to colonel at Valley