Denys George Finch-Hatton MC (24 April 1887 – 14 May 1931) was a British aristocratic big-game hunter and the lover of Baroness Karen von Blixen (also known by her pen name, Isak Dinesen), a Danish noblewoman who wrote about him in her autobiographical book Out of Africa, first published in 1937.

By the 1860s, his half-uncle the 11th Earl of Winchilsea had gambled away the family's several fortunes,[1] and was forced to leave the ancestral seat Eastwell Park, which at the time of Denys Finch Hatton's birth was already rented out to Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria, and his wife Maria Alexandrovna of Russia.

[3] Finch Hatton's early years were spent in Haverholme with his cousins and uncle, but his family resided in the nearby Dower House.

Peeved by the vulgar opulence, Denys threw them away to the unlit grate, but decided to retrieve them to give them to his sister Gladys.

Cole was very well connected in Kenya, being the brother-in-law of Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere, the effective leader of the White settlers in the country.

This relationship led to Edward VIII's taking up Finch Hatton's causes, such as abandoning the use of cars for hunting safaris, and shifting towards filming big game, wildlife photography, and the founding of the Serengeti National Park.

On his return to Kenya after the Armistice, he developed a close friendship with Blixen and her Swedish husband, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke.

By this time, Karen Blixen had separated from her husband, and after their divorce in 1925, Finch Hatton moved into her house and began leading safaris for wealthy sportsmen.

In accordance with his wishes, Finch Hatton was buried in the Ngong Hills, some five miles (8 km) to the west of the present-day Nairobi National Park.

"There was a place in the hills, on the first ridge in the Game Reserve that I myself, at the time I thought that I was to live and die in Africa, had pointed out to Denys as my future burial-place.

"[13] Later, his brother the 14th Earl of Winchilsea erected an obelisk at the gravesite upon which he placed a simple brass plaque inscribed with Finch Hatton's name, the dates of his birth and death and an extract from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's narrative poem the Rime of the Ancient Mariner: "He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast".