Some theorists of literature consider Socotra to be the prototype of Prospero Island mentioned in Shakespeare's play «The Tempest». In particular, this was assumed by Alexander A. Vannovsky, one of the founders of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party or RSDLP in 1898, a participant in the 1905 Revolution, and later on – a Shakespearian scholar, Christian philosopher and Russian professor-émigré in Japan.
Alexander Vannovsky believed that it was Christopher Marlowe, a talented young English dramatist, who really wrote Shakespeare's plays. In view of the fact that he was a secret agent of Elizabeth I, the Queen of England, it is quite possible to assume that Christopher Marlowe was sent on a secret mission to Socotra.