And Then There Were None

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And Then There Were None
Image:And Then There Were None First Edition Cover 1939.jpg
Cover of first edition featuring the original Ten Little Niggers Title
Author Agatha Christie
Original title Ten Little Niggers
Cover artist Not known
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Crime novel
Publisher Collins Crime Club
Publication date November 6, 1939
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 256 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN NA
Preceded by The Regatta Mystery
Followed by Sad Cypress
For the video game, see Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None. For the play, see And Then There Were None (1943 play). For the René Clair film, see And Then There Were None (1945 film).

And Then There Were None is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club in November 1939[1] under the title of Ten Little Niggers[2][3] and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company in January 1940. The novel has also been published (and filmed) as Ten Little Indians. It is Christie's best-known novel. It has sold 115 million copies to date according to the editors of Publications International, Ltd., making it the world's best-selling mystery.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The novel takes place on an island off the coast of Devon in 1930s England, where eight people of different social classes journey to the Soldier Island mansion, having been invited there by a Mr. and Mrs. U.N. Owen. Upon arriving, they are told by the butler and his wife, Thomas and Ethel Rogers, that their hosts are currently away. Each guest finds in his room a slightly odd bit of bric-a-brac and a framed copy of the nursery rhyme "Ten Little Soldiers Boys" ("Ten Little Niggers" in the original 1939 UK publication and "Ten Little Indians" in the 1940 US publication) hanging on the wall:

Ten little Soldier boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were Nine.
Nine little Soldier boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were Eight.
Eight little Soldier boys traveling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were Seven.
Seven little Soldier boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were Six.
Six little Soldier boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were Five.
Five little Soldier boys going in for law;
One got into Chancery and then there were Four.
Four little Soldier boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were Three.
Three little Soldier boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were Two.
Two little Soldier boys were out in the sun;
One got all frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Soldier boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

(In some versions the seventeenth and eighteenth lines read Two little Soldier boys playing with a gun; / One shot the other and then there was One.)

During a large dinner, the guests notice ten little figurines of soldiers on the dining room table. Later, when they gather in the parlor, a gramophone recording (bearing the label Swan Song) is played, informing the ten that all of them are guilty of murder, though in each case, they were never prosecuted by the law:

  • Anthony Marston ran over and killed two children while driving recklessly.
  • Mr. and Mrs. Rogers let their invalid employer die by withholding her medication, in order to claim a large inheritance.
  • General John Macarthur sent his wife's lover on a suicidal mission during World War I.
  • Emily Brent dismissed her maid after she became pregnant; the maid later committed suicide.
  • Justice Lawrence Wargrave gave the death penalty to accused murderer Edward Seton despite evidence supporting his innocence.
  • Dr. Edward Armstrong performed a surgical operation while drunk and accidentally killed his patient.
  • Inspector William Blore committed perjury during the trial of an accused bank robber, who died in prison.
  • Phillip Lombard abandoned a party of twenty-one native retainers to die in the African bush.
  • Vera Claythorne allowed Cyril Hamilton, a small boy in her care, to swim out to sea and drown; the boy was in the way of an inheritance which went to her lover, Hugo Hamilton, who later left her since he suspected her of deliberately causing the death of the boy whom he was very fond of.

The characters realize they have all been tricked into coming to the island, but now have no way to get back to the mainland, as the boat which regularly delivers supplies stops arriving. They are then murdered, one by one, each murder paralleling a verse of the nursery rhyme, and one of the ten soldier figurines being removed after each murder. First to die is Anthony Marston, whose drink is poisoned with cyanide (one choked his little self). The next morning, Mrs. Rogers never wakes up, and is assumed to have received a fatal overdose of sleeping draught (one overslept himself). At lunchtime, General MacArthur, who had predicted that he would never leave the island alive, is found dead from a blow to the back of his head (one said he'd stay there). In growing panic, the survivors search the island for the murderer or possible hiding places, but find no one. Justice Wargrave establishes himself as a decisive leader of the group; he asserts that one of them must be the murderer and is playing a sadistic game with them.

The next morning, Mr. Rogers is found dead in the woodshed, having been struck in the head with a large axe (one chopped himself in halves). Later that day, Emily Brent dies from an injection of potassium cyanide – the injection mark on her neck is an allusion to a bee sting (a bumblebee stung one). The hypodermic needle is found outside, thrown from the window along with a smashed china soldier figurine. The five survivors – Dr. Armstrong, Justice Wargrave, Philip Lombard, Vera Claythorne, and Inspector Blore – become increasingly frightened. Wargrave announces that anything on the island that could be used as a weapon should be locked up, including Wargrave's sleeping pills and Armstrong's medical equipment; Lombard admits to bringing a revolver to the island, but it has gone missing. They decide to sit in the drawing room, with only one leaving at any one time – theoretically, they should all be safe that way. Vera, the one most wracked by guilt, goes up to her room and discovers a strand of seaweed planted there; her screams attract the attention of Blore, Lombard, and Armstrong, who rush to her aid. When they return to the drawing room, they find Wargrave, dressed up in a judge's wig and gown, slumped against a chair with a gunshot wound in his forehead (one got into Chancery); Armstrong confirms his death.

That night, Blore hears someone sneaking out of the house. He searches the remaining rooms and discovers Armstrong missing from his – so he must be the killer. Vera, Blore, and Lombard (whose revolver has since been returned to him) decide it best to go outside when morning arrives; when Blore's hunger later returns him to the house, he does not return; Vera and Phillip discover him dead, his head crushed by a Vera's marble, bear-shaped clock (a big bear hugged one). They assume that Armstrong has committed the murder and leave to walk along the shore. They find Armstrong's drowned body along the cliffs (a red herring swallowed one) and realize that they are the only two left; though neither could possibly have killed the Inspector, their mutual suspicion has driven them to the breaking point and each of them assumes the other to be the murderer. As they lift Armstrong's body out of reach of the water, Vera swipes Lombard's revolver, shoots him dead on the beach (out in the sun; or, one shot the other), and returns to her room, discovering a noose hanging from the ceiling and a chair underneath it. Having finally been driven mad (or "hypnotically suggestible") by the experience and her guilt, Vera hangs herself, kicking the chair out from under her, fulfilling the final verse of the rhyme.

[edit] Epilogue

The epilogue consists of a conversation between Inspector Maine, in charge of the unsolved case, and the Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard. The man who made all the arrangements for U.N. Owen's purchase of the island was Isaac Morris, a shady dealer known to efficiently cover his tracks when doing business. However, he cannot tell the police anything: he died of a drug overdose the day the party set sail. During the period when the killings took place and immediately after, no one could have gotten onto or left the island without being seen and the weather was too bad anyway, ruling out the possibility that "Mr. Owen" was some unidentified person who committed the murders while evading detection from the guests.

The police have concluded from various characters' diaries that Blore, Armstrong, Lombard, and Vera were definitely the last to die. Blore could not have died last, as the clock was dropped onto him from above, and he could not have set up a way for it to fall on him. Armstrong could not have been last since his body was dragged above the high-tide mark by someone else; nor could Lombard, since he was shot on the beach but the revolver was found upstairs in the hallway, outside the door of Wargrave's room. This leaves Vera, who might have been the killer, except for the fact that the chair from which she lept with the noose around her neck was found pushed against the wall out of reach from where she might have stood on it.

Hence, although one of the ten guests must have been the killer, none of them could have been.

[edit] Postscript

A bottled letter penned by the late Justice Wargrave is found by a fishing trawler and sent to the Scotland Yard. The letter confesses that the judge committed the murders because, as he writes, ever since he was a child, he had been prone both to sadism and a fascination with the legal system. He freely divulges his hunger for blood, his desire for strict justice (as a judge he could never punish someone whom he honestly thought as innocent), and his delight in seeing the guilty punished. When he was told by his physician that he was terminally ill, Wargrave decided to go out in a blaze of drama to satiate his inner urges.

Thereafter, he details how he picked his victims, including a drug-dealing hypochondriac, Isaac Morris, whose drugs led to the death of a daughter of friends of Wargrave. After he had murdered the first five guests, he conspired with Armstrong to fake his own death and convinced the doctor to falsely pronounce him dead, allowing him to commit or orchestrate the remaining murders without suspicion.

After Vera (the guiltiest of the "condemned" according to the judge, since she deliberately allowed a child to drown but managed to pass herself off as a heroine who tried to rescue the boy) hanged herself, Wargrave, who had been watching from the bedroom closet, pushed the chair against the wall. He then wrote out his confession, putting the letter in a bottle and casting the bottle into the sea. He states that his only regret is that it was not enough to concoct an unsolvable mystery – he craves posthumous recognition of his brilliant scheme – therefore he explains three clues which should point to him as the killer in case his letter is not found:

  1. Wargrave mentions in the letter that Edward Seton's death was justified because Seton, despite his charm and excellent performance on the witness stand, was genuinely guilty of the crime of which he was accused. After his death, more evidence emerged putting his guilt beyond doubt. Therefore, Wargrave was the only guest who did not wrongfully cause the death of anyone (before coming to the island), though paradoxically, he would then be the executor.
  2. The "red herring" line in the poem suggests the fact that Armstrong was tricked into his death – and the respectable Justice Wargrave is the only one of the remaining houseguests in whom Armstrong would have been likely to confide.
  3. The bullet would leave a red mark in Wargrave's forehead similar to the mark of Cain, the first murderer described in the Biblical Old Testament.

The conclusion of the judge's letter indicates that after writing he shot himself while sitting on his bed, so that his body fell onto the bed as if it had been laid there. He had fastened the gun to the doorknob with a piece of elastic chord in such a way that the recoil would snap the gun out into the hallway as the door to his room closed.

Thus the police found ten dead bodies and an unsolvable mystery on Soldier Island.

[edit] Literary significance and reception

The Times Literary Supplement's review by Maurice Percy Ashley of November 11, 1939 stated that, "If her latest story has scarcely any detection in it there is no scarcity of murders." He continued, "There is a certain feeling of monotony inescapable in the regularity of the deaths which is better suited to a serialized newspaper story than a full-length novel. Yet there is an ingenious problem to solve in naming the murderer. It will be an extremely astute reader who guesses correctly."[4]

In The New York Times Book Review of February 25, 1940, Isaac Anderson detailed the set-up of the plot up to the point where 'the voice' accuses the ten people of their past misdemeanors and then said, "When you read what happens after that you will not believe it, but you will keep on reading, and as one incredible event is followed by another even more incredible you will still keep on reading. The whole thing is utterly impossible and utterly fascinating. It is the most baffling mystery that Agatha Christie has ever written, and if any other writer has ever surpassed it for sheer puzzlement the name escapes our memory. We are referring, of course, to mysteries that have logical explanations, as this one has. It is a tall story, to be sure, but it could have happened."[5]

Maurice Richardson wrote a rhapsodic review in The Observer's issue of November 5, 1939 which began, "No wonder Agatha Christie's latest has sent her publishers into a vatic trance. We will refrain, however, from any invidious comparisons with Roger Ackroyd and be content with saying that Ten Little Niggers is one of the very best, most genuinely bewildering Christies yet written. We will also have to refrain from reviewing it thoroughly, as it is so full of shocks that even the mildest revelation would spoil some surprise from somebody, and I am sure that you would rather have your entertainment kept fresh than criticism pure." After stating the set-up of the plot, Richardson concluded, "Story telling and characterisation are right at the top of Mrs. Christie's baleful form. Her plot may be highly artificial, but it is neat, brilliantly cunning, soundly constructed, and free from any of those red-herring false trails which sometimes disfigure her work."[1]

An unnamed reviewer in the Toronto Daily Star of March 16, 1940 said, "Others have written better mysteries than Agatha Christie, but no one can touch her for ingenious plot and surprise ending. With And Then There Were None...she is at her most ingenious and most surprising; is, indeed, considerably above the standard of her last few works and close to the Roger Ackroyd level."[6]

Robert Barnard: "Suspenseful and menacing detective-story-cum-thriller. The closed setting with the succession of deaths is here taken to its logical conclusion, and the dangers of ludicrousness and sheer reader-disbelief are skillfully avoided. Probably the best-known Christie, and justifiably among the most popular."[7]

[edit] Film, TV and theatrical adaptations

And Then There Were None has had more adaptations than any other single work of Christie's with the setting often being changed to locations other than an island and mostly utilising Christie's alternative ending from her 1943 stage play rather than that used in the book.

[edit] Stage

  • In 1943, Agatha Christie adapted the story for the stage. In the process of doing so, she realized that the novel's grim conclusion would not work dramatically on stage as there would be no one left to tell the tale, so she reworked the ending for Lombard and Vera to be innocent of the crimes of which they were accused, survive, and fall in love. Some of the names were also changed with General Macarthur becoming General McKenzie, probably due to the real-life General Douglas MacArthur who was playing a prominent role in the ongoing war.
Main article: And Then There Were None (1943 play)
  • On October 14, 2005 a new version of play, written by Kevin Elyot and directed by Steven Pimlott opened at the Gielgud Theatre in London. For this version, Elyot returned to the book version of story and restored the original ending where both Vera and Lombard die and Wargrave commits suicide.

[edit] Film

  • The story was first adapted for the cinema screen in René Clair's successful 1945 US production.
Main article: And Then There Were None (1945 film)
  • The second cinema adaptation of the book was directed by George Pollock in 1965 who had previously handled the four Miss Marple films starring Margaret Rutherford. This film transferred the setting from a remote island to a mountain retreat in Austria.
Main article: Ten Little Indians (1965 film)
  • Gumnaan is a 1965 uncredited adaptation set in a remote Indian location by the sea. Many elements were added to Christie's story in an film directed by Raja Nawathe from a screenplay by Dhruva Chatterjee.
Main article: Gumnaam
  • Five Bambole per la Luna D'Agosto ("Five Dolls for an August Moon") (1970) is an uncredited giallo adaptation by Mario Bava.
Main article: Five Dolls for an August Moon
  • And Then There Were None (1974) was the first colour English-language film version of the novel, directed by Peter Collinson from a screenplay by Peter Welbeck. This version was set in the Iranian desert.
Main article: And Then There Were None (1974 film)
  • Desyat Negrityat ("Ten Little Negroes") (1987). This film from the USSR, written and directed by Stanislav Govorukhin, is the only cinema adaptation to use the novel's original ending.
Main article: Desyat Negrityat
  • Ten Little Indians (1989). The most recent film version of the novel, directed by Alan Birkinshaw, was set on an African safari.
Main article: Ten Little Indians (1989 film)

[edit] Television

  • Ten Little Niggers (1949). UK. BBC TV adaptation.
  • Ten Little Niggers (1959). UK. ITV adaptation
  • Ten Little Indians (1959). Directed by Paul Bogart, Philip F. Falcone, Leo Farrenkopf and Dan Zampino; screenplay by Philip H. Reisman Jr. USA. Truncated TV adaptation of the play.
  • Zehn kleine Negerlein (1969). Directed by Hans Quest for ZDF; West German TV adaptation.
  • Dix petits nègres (1970). Directed by Pierre Sabbagh; screenplay by Pierre Brive. French TV adaptation.

[edit] Other

  • The K.B.S. Productions Inc. film, A Study in Scarlet (1933), predates the publication of Ten Little Niggers and follows a strikingly similar plot.[8] It is a Sherlock Holmes movie but bears no resemblance to Arthur Conan Doyle's original story of the same name. In this case, the rhyme refers to "Ten Little Black Boys".
  • Although not a direct adaptation, the film Mindhunters (2004) closely follows the storyline of the book.
  • On October 27, 2005, The Adventure Company released And Then There Were None as the first in a series of releases of PC games based on Christie novels.
Main article: Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None

[edit] Publication history

Cover of first US 1940 edition with the title currently used in all English-language versions
Cover of first US 1940 edition with the title currently used in all English-language versions

The novel was originally published in Britain under the title Ten Little Niggers in 1939[2][3]. All references to "Indian" in the story were originally "Nigger": thus the island was called "Nigger Island" [3] rather than "Indian Island" and the rhyme found by each murder victim was also called Ten Little Niggers [3] rather than Ten Little Indians. Modern printings use the rhyme Ten Little Soldiers and "Soldier Island".

The UK serialisation was in twenty-three parts in the Daily Express from Tuesday, June 6 to Saturday, July 1, 1939. All of the instalments carried an illustration by "Prescott" with the first instalment having an illustration of Burgh Island in Devon which inspired the setting of the story. This version did not contain any chapter divisions[9].

For the United States market, the novel was first serialised in the Saturday Evening Post in seven parts from May 20 (Volume 211, Number 47) to July 1, 1939 (Volume 212, Number 1) with illustrations by Henry Raleigh and then published separately in book form in January 1940. Both publications used the less inflammatory title And Then There Were None. The 1945 motion picture also used this title. In 1946, the play was published under the new title Ten Little Indians (the same title under which it had been performed on Broadway), and in 1964, an American paperback edition also used this title.

British editions continued to use the work's original title until the 1980s and the first British edition to use the alternative title And Then There Were None appeared in 1985 with a reprint of the 1963 Fontana Paperback. [10] Today And Then There Were None is the title most commonly used. However, the original title survives in many foreign-language versions of the novel: for example, the Spanish title is Diez Negritos, while the French title is Dix petits nègres. [11] A Dutch translation available as late as 1981 even used the work's original English title Ten Little Niggers. The 1987 Russian film adaptation has the title Десять негритят (Desyat' negrityat). The computer adventure game based on the novel uses "Ten Little Sailor Boys."

  • Christie, Agatha (November 1939). Ten Little Niggers. London: Collins Crime Club. OCLC 152375426.  Hardback, 256 pp. (First edition)
  • Christie, Agatha (January 1940). And Then There Were None. New York: Dodd, Mead. OCLC 1824276.  Hardback, 264 pp. (First US edition)
  • 1944, Pocket Books, 1944, Paperback, 173 pp (Pocket number 261)
  • 1947, Pan Books, 1947, Paperback, 190 pp (Pan number 4)
  • 1958, Penguin Books, 1958, Paperback, 201 pp (Penguin number 1256)
  • Christie, Agatha (1963). And Then There Were None. London: Fontana. OCLC 12503435.  Paperback, 190 pp. (The 1985 reprint was the first UK publication of novel under title "And Then There Were None". [12])
  • Christie, Agatha (1964). Ten Little Indians. New York: Pocket Books. OCLC 29462459.  (First publication of novel under title "Ten Little Indians")
  • 1964, Washington Square Press, 1964, (Paperback - teacher's edition)
  • Christie, Agatha (1977). Ten Little Niggers, Greenway edition, London: Collins Crime Club. ISBN 0002318350.  Collected works, Hardback, 252 pp (Except for reprints of the 1963 Fontana paperback, this was one of the last English-language publications of novel under the title "Ten Little Niggers"[13])
  • Christie, Agatha (1980). The Mysterious Affair at Styles; Ten Little Niggers; Dumb Witness. Sydney: Lansdowne Press. ISBN 0701814535.  Late use of the original title in an Australian edition.
  • Christie, Agatha; N J Robat (trans.) (1981). Ten Little Niggers, Third edition (in Dutch), Culemborg: Educaboek. ISBN 9011851536.  (Late printing of Dutch translation preserving original English title)
  • Christie, Agatha (1986). Ten Little Indians. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0671552228.  (Last publication of novel under title "Ten Little Indians")

[edit] Comic strip adaptation

And Then There Were None will be released by HarperCollins as a comic strip adaptation on August 4, 2008, adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq. ISBN 0-00-727532-3

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b The Observer November 5, 1939 (Page 6)
  2. ^ a b Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club – A checklist of First Editions. Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)
  3. ^ a b c d Pendergast, Bruce (2004). Everyman's Guide To The Mysteries Of Agatha Christie. Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 393. ISBN 1412023041. 
  4. ^ The Times Literary Supplement November 11, 1939 (Page 658)
  5. ^ The New York Times Book Review February 25, 1940 (Page 15)
  6. ^ Toronto Daily Star March 16, 1940 (Page 28)
  7. ^ Barnard, Robert. A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie - Revised edition (Page 206). Fontana Books, 1990. ISBN 0006374743
  8. ^ Taves, Brian (1987). Robert Florey, the French Expressionist. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, p. 152. ISBN 0810819295. 
  9. ^ Holdings at the British Library (Newspapers - Colindale). Shelfmark: NPL LON LD3 and NPL LON MLD3.
  10. ^ British National Bibliography for 1985. British Library. 1986. ISBN 0-7123-1035-5
  11. ^ Amazon.fr : Dix petits nègres, nouvelle édition: Livres: Agatha Christie
  12. ^ British National Bibliography British Library. 1986. ISBN 0-7123-1035-5
  13. ^ Whitaker's Cumulative Book List for 1977. J. Whitaker and Sons Ltd. 1978. ISBN 0-85021-105-0

[edit] External links


v • d • e
Works by Agatha Christie
Detectives
Novels
The Mysterious Affair at Styles · The Secret Adversary · The Murder on the Links · The Man in the Brown Suit · The Secret of Chimneys · The Murder of Roger Ackroyd · The Big Four · The Mystery of the Blue Train · The Seven Dials Mystery · The Murder at the Vicarage · The Sittaford Mystery · Peril at End House · Lord Edgware Dies · Murder on the Orient Express · Why Didn't They Ask Evans? · Three Act Tragedy · Death in the Clouds · The A.B.C. Murders · Murder in Mesopotamia · Cards on the Table · Dumb Witness · Death on the Nile · Appointment with Death · Hercule Poirot's Christmas · Murder is Easy · And Then There Were None · Sad Cypress · One, Two, Buckle My Shoe · Evil Under the Sun · N or M? · The Body in the Library · Five Little Pigs · The Moving Finger · Towards Zero · Death Comes as the End · Sparkling Cyanide · The Hollow · Taken at the Flood · Crooked House · A Murder is Announced · They Came to Baghdad · Mrs McGinty's Dead · They Do It with Mirrors · After the Funeral · A Pocket Full of Rye · Destination Unknown · Hickory Dickory Dock · Dead Man's Folly · 4.50 from Paddington · Ordeal by Innocence · Cat Among the Pigeons · The Pale Horse · The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side · The Clocks · A Caribbean Mystery · At Bertram's Hotel · Third Girl · Endless Night · By the Pricking of My Thumbs · Hallowe'en Party · Passenger to Frankfurt · Nemesis · Elephants Can Remember · Postern of Fate · Curtain · Sleeping Murder
As Mary Westmacott
Short story collections
Plays
Radio (and Television) Plays
Other books