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Grant, Professor. Professor Grant was created by the Russian author Valentin Katayev (Stanley Holmes) and appeared in Ostrov Erendorf (1924).

Professor Grant is an eminent scientist who discovers that the world will imminently be destroyed by a series of earthquakes and tidal waves, with only one small island in the Atlantic Ocean untouched by this global catastrophe. He takes his information to Matapal, the world's richest man, but Matapal, who is busy trying to crush a worker's revolution, uses Grant's information to occupy the island and staff it with his personal entourage. Matapal wants to CONQUER THE WORLD! and create the perfect capitalist paradise, and he intends to do so on the island after the rest of the world is destroyed.

Unfortunately, the adding machine that Professor Grant was using to calculate the earthquakes and tidal waves has the plus and minus keys accidentally transposed, and Grant's prediction is skewed. The earthquakes and tidal waves come, but they only destroy the small island on which Matapal and his group were staying. By novel's end Matapal is dead, Grant's reputation is saved, and the workers have been spared from Matapal's anti-revolutionary efforts.

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