Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None

Agatha Christie is one of the best-selling authors of all time. Her And Then There Were None is the seventh best-selling book (100 million copies) of all time. Christie is famous for her 66 detective novels, some of which featured the fictional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot or an elderly English spinster named Miss Marple. Christie was also a playwright. Her play The Mousetrap is the longest running theatrical production of all time. It opened in London’s West End in 1952 and has been running ever since, with a brief hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And Then There were None is the title of the American edition. The original British edition (1939) had a title that included the “n” word because an 1869 minstrel song featured in the plot. For a few years, the American edition had been marketed under the title Ten Little Indians.

Like many of Christie’s works, And Then There Were None is a murder mystery. Murder has been a theme in literature as long as there has been literature.  However, the early 20th century was the golden age of the English murder mystery, sometimes also calld the “whodunnit.” The basic formula was established by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. A body is discovered in a closed setting, such as a house or train.  There is a small circle of suspects, who are usually respectable middle or upper-middle class people. As the story unfolds, the readers learn that nearly all of these characters had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit th crime. However, the mystery is solved by a detective who has extraordinary attention to detail and reasoning powers. The detective solves the riddle before anyone else and explains it at the end.

And Then There Were None has been made into a movie several times, starting in 1945.

Where to read And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie | Goodreads