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,
Life of Pi ship sinks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during a voyage to North America. Richard Parker is a royal Bengal tiger who is stranded on the lifeboat with Pi when the ship sinks. Richard Parker lives on the lifeboat with Pi and is kept alive with the food and water Pi delivers. Richard Parker develops a relationship with Pi that allows them to coexist in their struggle. In the novel, a hunter named Richard Parker is hired to kill a panther thought to have killed seven people within two months. Instead, he accidentally immobilizes a female Bengal tiger with