And Then There Were None Agatha Christie

And Then There Were None is a 1939 mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie. It is the world's best-selling mystery novel and one of the best-selling books of all time, with more than 100 million copies sold by 2007.[2] It has been adapted numerous times for film, television, radio, theatre, and other media. In 2015, it was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a global vote organised by the author's estate.[3]

Ten strangers on an isolated island off the coast of Devon are accused of past crimes, and are killed one by one according to the lines of a popular rhyme. Christie described the book as the most difficult of her novels to write because of the complexity of the plot and its solution.[4][5]

The book was first published in the United Kingdom by Collins Crime Club in November 1939 as Ten Little Niggers, after an 1869 minstrel song that forms the central element of the story.[6][7][8] It continued to be published in the UK under that title until 1985, when it became And Then There Were None.[9]

The first American edition, published in 1940, was called And Then There Were None from the start,[10] and has mostly continued under that title, although between 1964 and 1986 it was published by Pocket Books of New York as Ten Little Indians.

In both the US and later UK editions the text was modified to avoid the racial epithet, referring throughout to "Ten Little Indians" or "Ten Little Soldiers".[9]

Eight people arrive on a small, isolated island off the Devon coast, each having received an unexpected invitation. They are met by the butler and housekeeper, Thomas and Ethel Rogers, who explain that their hosts, Mr and Mrs Owen, have not yet arrived. A framed copy of an old rhyme hangs in every guest's room, and on the dining room table sit ten figurines. Acting on written instructions, Mr Rogers puts on a gramophone record, which accuses all ten people present of having committed murder. The guests realise that none of them know the Owens. Anthony Marston finishes his drink and promptly dies from cyanide poisoning.

Next morning, Mrs Rogers is found dead in her bed. Suspecting their unknown host, some of the guests search the island, but find nobody else. After General MacArthur dies from a blow to the head, the guests conclude that one of the seven remaining persons must be responsible. The following day, Mr Rogers is found dead at the woodpile, having been attacked with an axe, and Emily Brent is found dead in the drawing room, having been sedated and then injected with potassium cyanide. The guests realise that one figurine in the dining room is being removed after each death, and that the manner of the deaths corresponds with the wording of the rhyme.

Mr Justice Wargrave suggests that all drugs and firearms should be secured, and that everyone should submit to a search. Philip Lombard's gun cannot be found. That evening, Vera Claythorne goes up to her room and screams when she finds seaweed hanging from the ceiling. Most of the remaining guests rush upstairs; when they return they find Wargrave in his chair, wearing his judicial wig and scarlet robes. Dr Armstrong pronounces him dead from a gunshot wound to the forehead. That night, Lombard's gun is returned, William Blore sees someone leaving the house, and Armstrong mysteriously disappears.

After breakfast next morning, Vera, Lombard, and Blore go out. When Blore returns for food, he is killed by a bear-shaped marble clock that falls from Vera's window sill. Vera and Lombard find Armstrong's drowned body washed up on the beach; it seems as though they are the only two left alive. Vera grabs Lombard's gun and shoots him dead. She returns to her room, and finds that a noose and chair have been set up. Her mind wandering, and believing that her former love is watching, she hangs herself in accordance with the last line of the rhyme.

Scotland Yard officials arrive to find ten bodies. They discover that a sleazy agent named Isaac Morris had purchased the island and made the arrangements on behalf of an unknown buyer. While the guests were on the island, Morris had died from an overdose of barbiturates. From the victims' diaries, the police reconstruct the first six deaths. They deduce that neither Armstrong, Lombard, nor Vera could have been the last person alive, as objects had been moved after their deaths, and they consider Blore's death unlikely to have been suicide. It seems no one else was on the island during this time, leaving the police mystified.

A sealed bottle is recovered from the sea, containing a written confession by Wargrave. He reveals that all his life he had possessed both a strong sense of justice and a savage bloodlust, contradictory impulses he had satisfied by becoming a judge and sentencing criminals to death. After a terminal medical diagnosis, he decided to mete out justice to individuals he considered had escaped legal punishment. He hired Morris to make the arrangements, then tricked him into overdosing. Posing as one of the guests, he decided to kill them in order of increasing guilt. Once it became clear that the killer was one of the group, Wargrave tricked Dr Armstrong into helping him fake his own death as part of a fictitious scheme to trap the murderer into incriminating himself. After all the others were dead, Wargrave shot himself, making sure that his true death matched his staged death recorded in the guests' diaries, so that investigators would be left with "ten dead bodies and an unsolved problem".

• Edward George Armstrong – a Harley Street doctor
• William Henry Blore – a former police inspector, now a private investigator
• Emily Caroline Brent – an elderly, pious spinster
• Vera Elizabeth Claythorne – a sports mistress at a girls' school and former governess
• Philip Lombard – a soldier of fortune
• John Gordon MacArthur – a retired World War I general
• Anthony James Marston – a wealthy and irresponsible young man
• Ethel Rogers – the cook and housekeeper, and Thomas Rogers's wife
• Thomas Rogers – the butler and Ethel Rogers's husband
• Lawrence John Wargrave (Mr Justice Wargrave) – a retired criminal judge

The plot is structured around the ten lines of the rhyme "Ten Little Niggers",[11] a popular 1869 minstrel song written for the Christy's Minstrels by the British songwriter Frank Green.[12] Green had modelled his lyrics on an American comic song "Ten Little Indians" [or Injuns][13][14] by Septimus Winner that had been published the year before.[15] In later editions of the novel, the characters of the rhyme are replaced by "Ten Little Indians" or "Ten Little Soldier Boys".

This is the rhyme as published in a British 2008 edition:[16]

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 travelling 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 in 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 sitting in the sun; One got 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.

Each of the ten victims – eight guests, plus the island's two caretakers – is killed in a manner that reflects one of the lines of the rhyme. An additional victim, Isaac Morris, dies on the mainland before the events on the island.

Correspondence between the rhyme and the deaths

And Then There Were None received highly positive reviews on publication. Writing for The Times Literary Supplement in November 1939, Maurice Percy Ashley stated, "If her latest story has scarcely any detection in it there is no scarcity of murders ... 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", he continued. "It will be an extremely astute reader who guesses correctly."[18]

In The New York Times Book Review in 1940, Isaac Anderson said, "When you read what happens after [the playing of the gramophone record] 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."[19]

A reviewer in the Toronto Daily Star similarly compared the novel favourably with Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926): "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."[20]

In The Observer, Maurice Richardson said of the novel, "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."[6]

Later critics continued to regard the novel highly. In 1990, Robert Barnard described it as a "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."[21]

The novel has frequently been cited among the greatest crime novels ever written. In 1990, the Crime Writers' Association ranked it 19th on its list of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. In 1995, the Mystery Writers of America placed it 10th on a similar list.[22] In 2015, a worldwide poll organised by the author's estate named it the “World's Favourite Christie”.[3][23] Entertainment Weekly later included the novel in its list of “Nine Great Christie Novels”.[24]

Scholars have also discussed the novel’s original title and racial imagery. Literary critic Alison Light argued that the original British title, Ten Little Niggers, and the setting on “Nigger Island” (renamed “Indian Island” and “Soldier Island” in subsequent editions) "could be relied upon automatically to conjure up a thrilling 'otherness', a place where revelations about the 'dark side' of the English would be appropriate."[25] Light suggested that Christie’s use of racialised imagery reflected broader anxieties embedded in British popular culture between the wars; unlike novels such as Heart of Darkness, "Christie's location is both more domesticated and privatized, taking for granted the construction of racial fears woven into psychic life as early as the nursery. If her story suggests how easy it is to play upon such fears, it is also a reminder of how intimately tied they are to sources of pleasure and enjoyment."[25]

In her autobiography, Christie described the novel as one of the most technically difficult books she had written:

I had written the book Ten Little Niggers because it was so difficult to do that the idea had fascinated me. Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious. I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of planning, and I was pleased with what I had made of it. It was clear, straightforward, baffling, and yet had a perfectly reasonable explanation; in fact, it had to have an epilogue in order to explain it. It was well received and reviewed, but the person who was really pleased with it was myself, for I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been ... I don't say it is the play or book of mine that I like best, or even that I think it is my best, but I do think in some ways that it is a better piece of craftsmanship than anything else I have written.[5]

The story was serialised in 23 parts in the Daily Express from 6 June to 1 July 1939, with illustrations by "Prescott", the first instalment having an illustration of Burgh Island in Devon which inspired the setting.[26] The novel was first published in the United Kingdom by Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939 under the title Ten Little Niggers.[6]

The first American edition, published by Dodd, Mead and Company in January 1940, used the title And Then There Were None.[10] The novel was also serialised in the United States in the Saturday Evening Post in seven instalments between May and July 1939, with illustrations by Henry Raleigh.[7][8]

Title and associated language

On first publication in the UK, the novel’s title, the rhyme, the island name, and descriptions of the ten figurines all used the word "Nigger".[27] Later editions continued to use the original title until 1985, when a reprint of the 1963 Fontana Paperback finally adopted And Then There Were None as the standard UK title.[8][9]

For its first American publication, the book was retitled And Then There Were None as the original wording was considered unacceptably racially loaded in the United States.[10] All references to the original title and associated language were removed (apart from one mention of the phrase "nigger in the woodpile"), and were replaced with “Indian” or, later, “Soldier”. Between 1964 and 1986 the book was published by Pocket Books of New York as Ten Little Indians.

Critics and scholars have discussed the racial language of the novel and its subsequent retitling. Sadie Stein, commenting in 2016 on the BBC mini-series And Then There Were None, noted that "even in 1939, this title was considered too offensive for American publication", and wrote that in general "Christie's work is not known for its racial sensitivity, and by modern standards her oeuvre is rife with casual Orientalism."[28] The literary scholar Alison Light argued that the original title and the setting of “Nigger Island” contributed to the novel’s atmosphere of estrangement and menace.[29] Speaking of the "widely known" 1945 film, Stein added that "we're merely faced with fantastic amounts of violence, and a rhyme so macabre and distressing one doesn't hear it now outside of the Agatha Christie context."[28] She felt that the original title of the novel in the UK, seen now, "jars, viscerally".[28]

During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, many foreign-language editions were similarly retitled to remove racial terminology. The estate of Agatha Christie now publishes the novel in English only under the title And Then There Were None.[4]

Best-selling crime novel

And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with more than 100 million copies sold as of 2007; it is also the world's best-selling mystery and one of the best-selling books of all time. Publications International lists the novel as the seventh best-selling title of all time.[2]

Editions in English

• 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.
• Christie, Agatha (1944). And Then There Were None. New York: Pocket Books (Pocket number 261). Paperback, 173 pp.
• Christie, Agatha (1947). Ten Little Niggers. London: Pan Books (Pan number 4). Paperback, 190 pp.
• Christie, Agatha (1958). Ten Little Niggers. London: Penguin Books (Penguin number 1256). Paperback, 201 pp.
• Christie, Agatha (1963). Ten Little Niggers. London: Fontana. OCLC 12503435. Paperback, 190 pp. The 1985 reprint was the first UK publication of the novel under the title And Then There Were None.[9]
• Christie, Agatha (1964). Ten Little Indians. New York: Pocket Books. OCLC 29462459. First publication of novel as Ten Little Indians.
• Christie, Agatha (1964). And Then There Were None. New York: Washington Square Press. Paperback, teacher's edition.
• Christie, Agatha (1977). Ten Little Niggers (Greenway ed.). London: Collins Crime Club. ISBN 0-00-231835-0. Collected works, Hardback, 252 pp. (Except for reprints of the 1963 Fontana paperback, this was one of the last English-language publications of the novel under the title Ten Little Niggers.)[30]
• Christie, Agatha (1980). The Mysterious Affair at Styles; Ten Little Niggers; Dumb Witness. Sydney: Lansdowne Press. ISBN 0-7018-1453-5. Late use of the original title in an Australian edition.
• Christie, Agatha (1986). Ten Little Indians. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-55222-8. Last publication of novel under the title Ten Little Indians.

Foreign-language editions

Many early translations retained versions of the original British title, often using local terms that at the time were considered closer in meaning to negro or negrito than to the English racial slur.[31][32]

From the late twentieth century onward, numerous publishers retitled the novel to remove racial terminology. German editions changed from Zehn kleine Negerlein to Und dann gab's keines mehr in 2003 following public controversy over a stage adaptation.[n 1] Similar retitlings later occurred in Dutch,[n 2] Swedish,[n 3] Brazilian Portuguese,[n 4] Polish,[n 5] French,[n 6] Hungarian,[n 7] and Turkish[n 8] editions. In 1999, the Slovak National Theatre changed the title of a stage adaptation mid-run.[n 9]

Some languages adopted alternative titles unrelated to the English versions. European Portuguese editions have appeared both as Convite Para a Morte (“Invitation to Death”) and As Dez Figuras Negras (“The Ten Black Figures”), while the 1940 Finnish translation initially used a title equivalent to And Then There Were None (Eikä yksikään pelastunut, "No one was saved"), before being renamed Kymmenen pientä neekeripoikaa ("Ten little negro boys") in 1968, eventually reverting to the previous title in 2003.[43][37]

Some recent editions in languages including Spanish, Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Russian have continued to use variants of the original Ten Little ... title. The 1987 Soviet film adaptation Desyat Negrityat likewise retained a direct equivalent of the original title. The estate of Agatha Christie now promotes the novel internationally under the English title And Then There Were None,[4] and newer translations increasingly adopt local equivalents of that title.[37]

The 1930 novel The Invisible Host by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning has a plot that strongly matches that of Christie's later novel, including a recorded voice announcing to the guests that their sins will be visited upon them by death. The Invisible Host was adapted as the 1930 Broadway play The Ninth Guest by Owen Davis,[44] which itself was adapted as the 1934 film The Ninth Guest. There is no evidence Christie saw either the play (which had a brief run on Broadway) or the film.

The 1933 K.B.S. Productions Sherlock Holmes film A Study in Scarlet follows a strikingly similar plot;[45] the victims are tormented by slips of paper inspired by the same poem used in Christie's novel. One says "Six Little Black Boys | Playing With a Hive | A Bumble-Bee Stung One | And Then There Were Five." As in Christie's book, the killer turns out to be one of the "victims" who had appeared to be dead. The film retained no plot points from Arthur Conan Doyle's original story of the same name. The author of the movie's screenplay, Robert Florey, "doubted that [Christie] had seen A Study in Scarlet, but he regarded it as a compliment if it had helped inspire her".[46]

And Then There Were None has had more adaptations than any other work by Agatha Christie.[4] Christie herself changed the bleak ending to a more palatable one for theatre audiences when she adapted the novel for the stage in 1943. Many adaptations incorporate changes to the story, such as using Christie's alternative ending from her stage play or changing the setting to locations other than an island.

Film

There have been numerous film adaptations of the novel:

• And Then There Were None (1945), American film by René Clair
• Ten Little Indians (1965), British film directed by George Pollock and produced by Harry Alan Towers; Pollock had previously handled four Miss Marple films starring Margaret Rutherford. Set in a mountain retreat in Austria.
• Gumnaam (1965, translation: Unknown or Anonymous), an Indian suspense thriller. This loose, uncredited Hindi film adaptation added the characteristic "Bollywood" elements of comedy, music and dance to Christie's plot.[47]
• Nadu Iravil (1970, translation: In the middle of the night), a Tamil adaptation directed by S. Balachander[48]
• And Then There Were None (1974), the first English-language colour version, directed by Peter Collinson and produced by Harry Alan Towers. Based on a screenplay by Towers (writing as "Peter Welbeck"), who co-wrote the screenplay for the 1965 film. Set at a grand hotel in the Iranian desert.
• Desyat' Negrityat (1987, Десять негритят, translation: Ten Little Negroes) a Russian adaptation produced/directed by Stanislav Govorukhin. The film concludes with the grim finale from Agatha Christie's original novel, rather than the upbeat ending from the 1943 stage version that most other adaptations chose to follow.[49]
• Ten Little Indians, a 1989 British version, produced by Harry Alan Towers and directed by Alan Birkinshaw, set on safari in the African savannah
• Aatagara, a 2015 Indian Kannada-language adaptation[50] directed by K. M. Chaitanya. The action takes place during a reality show.

Radio

The BBC broadcast Ten Little Niggers (1947), adapted by Ayton Whitaker, first aired as a Monday Matinee on the BBC Home Service on 27 December 1947 and as Saturday Night Theatre on the BBC Light Programme on 29 December.[51]

On 13 November 2010, as part of its Saturday Play series, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 90-minute adaptation written by Joy Wilkinson. The production was directed by Mary Peate and featured Geoffrey Whitehead as Mr Justice Wargrave, Lyndsey Marshal as Vera Claythorne, Alex Wyndham as Philip Lombard, John Rowe as Dr Armstrong, and Joanna Monro as Emily Brent.

Stage

And Then There Were None (1943) is Christie's adaptation of the story for the stage. She and the producers agreed that audiences might not flock to a tale with such a grim ending as the novel, nor would it work well dramatically as there would be no one left to tell the story. Christie reworked the ending for Lombard and Vera to be innocent of the crimes of which they were accused, survive, and fall in love with each other. Some of the names were also changed, e.g., General MacArthur became General McKenzie in both the New York and London productions.[52][53] By 1943, General Douglas MacArthur was playing a prominent role in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, which may explain the change of the character's name.

Ten Little Niggers (1944): Dundee Repertory Theatre Company was given special permission to restore the original ending of the novel. The company first performed a stage adaptation of the novel in August 1944 under the UK title of the novel, with Christie credited as the dramatist.[54] It was the first performance in repertory theatre.[54] It was staged again in 1965.[55]

And Then There Were None (2005): On 14 October 2005, a new version of the play, written by Kevin Elyot and directed by Steven Pimlott, opened at the Gielgud Theatre in London. For this version, Elyot returned to the original story in the novel, restoring the nihilism of the original.[56]

Television

Three British TV adaptations have been broadcast. The first two, which appeared under Christie's original title, were produced by the BBC in 1949[57] and by ITV in 1959.[58] The third aired on BBC One in December 2015 as And Then There Were None.[59]

An American TV movie by Paul Bogart aired on NBC in 1959. In 2010, American animated TV series Family Guy adapted the story as "And Then There Were Fewer".[60]

There have been many foreign-language TV adaptations:

• A Portuguese-language version for Brazilian television, broadcast 16 February 1957, titled O Caso dos Dez Negrinhos
• O Caso dos Dez Negrinhos, a 1963 episode of the Brazilian anthology series Grande Teatro Tupi
• A West German television production, Zehn kleine Negerlein, which aired in 1969
• Dix petits nègres, a 1970 episode of the French anthology series Au théâtre ce soir
• Achra Abid Zghar (1974, translation: Ten Little Slaves), a Télé Liban TV series directed by Jean Fayyad, adapted for television by Latifeh Moultaka
• Deka Mikroi Negroi, a 1978 episode of the Greek anthology series To theatro tis Defteras
• A free Spanish adaptation made by RTVE in 2011 as the two-parter The mystery of the ten strangers for the second season of Los misterios de Laura (part 1 and part 2)
• Achra Abid Zghar (2014, translation: Ten Little Slaves), an MTV Lebanon television production
• Soshite daremo inakunatta (そして誰もいなくなった), a two-part Japanese-language adaptation by Shukei Nagasaka (長坂秀佳, Nagasaka Shukei) set in modern times, aired 25 and 26 March 2017 on TV Asahi in Japan. It was directed by Seiji Izumi and adapted for television by Hideka Nagasaka.[61][62]
• Ils étaient dix, a French six-part miniseries produced by M6 and aired in 2020, set on a tropical island in present time

Other media

The novel was the inspiration for several video games. For the Apple II, Online Systems released Mystery House in 1980. On the PC, The Adventure Company released Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None in 2005, the first in a series of PC games based on Christie novels. In February 2008, it was ported to the Wii console.[63]

And Then There Were None was released by HarperCollins as a graphic novel adaptation on 30 April 2009, adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq.

In 2014, Peká Editorial released a board game based on the book, Diez Negritos ("Ten Little Negroes"), created by Judit Hurtado and Fernando Chavarría, and illustrated by Esperanza Peinado.[64]

The 2014 live action comedy-crime and murder mystery TV web series Ten Little Roosters, produced by American company Rooster Teeth, is largely inspired by And Then There Were None.[65]

A manga adaptation illustrated by Aya Nikaido was serialized on Hayakawa Publishing's Hayacomic website from July 23 to December 17, 2024, with its chapters collected in three volumes.[66][67][68] The manga has been licensed for English publication by Viz Media in Q4 2026.[69]

1. ^ From Zehn kleine Negerlein to Und dann gab's keines mehr[33][34]
2. ^ From Tien kleine negertjes to En toen waren er nog maar...[35]
3. ^ From Tio små negerpojkar to Och så var de bara en[36]
4. ^ From O Caso dos Dez Negrinhos to E Não Sobrou Nenhum[37]
5. ^ From Dziesięciu Murzynków to I nie było już nikogo[38]
6. ^ From Dix petits nègres to Ils étaient dix[39]
7. ^ From Tíz kicsi néger to Mert többen nincsenek[40]
8. ^ From On Küçük Zenci to On Kişiydiler[41]
9. ^ From Desať malých černoškov to A napokon nezostal už nik[42]

1. ^ "British Library Item details". primocat.bl.uk. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
2. ^ a b Davies, Helen; Dorfman, Marjorie; Fons, Mary; Hawkins, Deborah; Hintz, Martin; Lundgren, Linnea; Priess, David; Clark Robinson, Julia; Seaburn, Paul; Stevens, Heidi; Theunissen, Steve (14 September 2007). "21 Best-Selling Books of All Time". Editors of Publications International, Ltd. Archived from the original on 7 April 2009. Retrieved 25 March 2009.
3. ^ a b Flood, Alison (2 September 2015). "And Then There Were None declared world's favourite Agatha Christie novel". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 30 July 2017. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
4. ^ a b c d "And Then There Were None". Agatha Christie Limited. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
5. ^ a b Christie, Agatha (1977). Agatha Christie: An Autobiography. New York City: Dodd, Mead & Company. pp. 457–48. ISBN 0-396-07516-9.
6. ^ a b c "Review of Ten Little Niggers". The Observer. 5 November 1939. p. 6.
7. ^ a b Peers, Chris; Spurrier, Ralph; Sturgeon, Jamie (1999). Collins Crime Club: a checklist of the first editions (2nd ed.). London, UK: Dragonby Press. p. 15. ISBN 1-871122-13-9.
8. ^ a b c Pendergast, Bruce (2004). Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie. Victoria, British Columbia: Trafford Publishing. p. 393. ISBN 1-4120-2304-1.
9. ^ a b c d British National Bibliography for 1985. British Library. 1986. ISBN 0-7123-1035-5. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
10. ^ a b c "American Tribute to Agatha Christie: The Classic Years 1940–1944". J S Marcum. May 2004. Archived from the original on 20 April 2004. Retrieved 16 October 2018.
11. ^ "Review of Ten Little Niggers". The Observer. 5 November 1939. p. 6.
12. ^ "Ten Little Niggers", song written in 1869 by Frank Green, for music by Mark Mason, for the singer G. W. "Pony" Moore.
13. ^ "Ten Little Indians", song by Septimus_Winner, American lyricist residing in Philadelphia, published in July 1868 in London.
14. ^ Keating, H. R. F. (1989). The Bedside Companion to Crime. London: Michael O'Mara Books. p. 13. ISBN 0-948397-53-5. OCLC 19671908.
15. ^ Light, Alison (1991). Forever England: Femininity, Literature, and Conservatism Between the Wars. Routledge. note 112, page 243. ISBN 0-415-01661-4.
16. ^ Christie, Agatha (March 2008). And Then There Were None. Harper-Collins. p. 276. ISBN 978-0-06-074683-4.
17. ^ Christie, Agatha (March 2008). And Then There Were None. Harper-Collins. p. 276. ISBN 978-0-06-074683-4.
18. ^ Ashley, Maurice Percy Ashley (11 November 1939). "Review: Ten Little Indians". The Times Literary Supplement. p. 658.
19. ^ Anderson, Isaac (25 February 1940). "Review: Ten Little Indians". The New York Times Book Review. p. 15.
20. ^ "Review: Ten Little Indians". Toronto Daily Star. 16 March 1940. p. 28.
21. ^ Barnard, Robert (1990). A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie (Revised ed.). Fontana Books. p. 206. ISBN 0-00-637474-3.
22. ^ "Book awards: The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time Mystery Writers of America". The Library Thing. Retrieved 12 April 2017.
23. ^ "Result of world's favourite Christie global vote". Agatha Christie. 22 December 2015.
24. ^ "Binge! Agatha Christie: Nine Great Christie Novels". Entertainment Weekly. No. 1343–44. 26 December 2014. pp. 32–33.
25. ^ a b Light, Alison (1991). Forever England: Femininity, Literature, and Conservatism Between the Wars. Routledge. p. 99. ISBN 0-415-01661-4.
26. ^ Holdings at the British Library (Newspapers – Colindale); shelfmark NPL LON LD3/NPL LON MLD3.
27. ^ Pendergast, Bruce (2004). Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie. Victoria, British Columbia: Trafford Publishing. p. 393. ISBN 1-4120-2304-1.
28. ^ a b c Stein, Sadie (5 February 2016). "Mystery". The Paris Review. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
29. ^ Light, Alison (1991). Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism Between the Wars. Routledge. p. 99. ISBN 978-1-135-62984-7.
30. ^ Whitaker's Cumulative Book List for 1977. J Whitaker and Sons. 1978. ISBN 0-85021-105-0.
31. ^ Christie, Agatha (January 2018). Zece Negri Mititei (in Romanian). Litera. ISBN 978-606-33-3104-6.
32. ^ Десять негритят. Убийство в "Восточном экспрессе". Смерть на Ниле (in Russian). Eksmo. 2019. ISBN 978-5-04-105562-2. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
33. ^ Haase, Bernd (3 March 2011). "Streit um Theateraufführung "Zehn kleine Negerlein"". Hannoversche Allgemeine (in German). Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
34. ^ ISBN 978-3-502-51767-2 (2001) to ISBN 978-3-502-51937-9 (2003)
35. ^ Sjouwerman, Petra (20 January 2007). "De vader van Pippi mag geen negerkoning meer heten". Trouw (in Dutch). Retrieved 26 August 2020.
36. ^ Rydén, Daniel (11 January 2007). "Bok får inte heta "Tio små negerpojkar"". Sydsvenskan (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 August 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
37. ^ a b c Lourenço Hanes, Vanessa Lopes (2018). "The Retitling of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Niggers in Anglophone and Lusophone Markets" (PDF). Translation and Literature. 27 (2): 184–194. doi:10.3366/tal.2018.0337. S2CID 240478495. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
38. ^ OCLC 1077449155 to OCLC 1030559084
39. ^ Marsick, Laurent (26 August 2020). "'Dix petits nègres': le best-seller d'Agatha Christie débaptisé". RTL.fr (in French). RTL Group. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
40. ^ "Új címmel jelenik meg a Tíz kicsi néger". Könyves Magazin. 23 July 2020. Retrieved 2 July 2025.
41. ^ Christie, Agatha; Öztekin, Çiğdem (18 February 2021). On Kişiydiler - On Küçük Zenci. Altin Kitaplar. ISBN 978-975-21-2616-9.
42. ^ "Agatha Christie: Desať malých černoškov ... a napokon nezostal už nik". Snd.sk (in Slovak). Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
43. ^ "Kymmenen pientä neekeripoikaa joutui pannaan". Ilta-Sanomat (in Finnish). 21 January 2004. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
44. ^ Davis, Owen (1930). The Ninth Guest: A Mystery Melodrama in Three Acts. New York City: Samuel French.
45. ^ Taves, Brian (1987). Robert Florey, the French Expressionist. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 152. ISBN 0-8108-1929-5.
46. ^ Taves, Brian (1987). Robert Florey, the French Expressionist. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 153. ISBN 0-8108-1929-5.
47. ^ "Aboard the mystery train". Cinema Express. 22 November 2017. Archived from the original on 27 January 2022. Retrieved 15 August 2020. Gumnaam (1965) Adapted from: And Then There Were None
48. ^ "Author of incredible reach". The Hindu. 24 October 2008. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
49. ^ "И негритят не стало…". Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
50. ^ "Aatagara is not a remake". Bangalore Mirror. 30 August 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
51. ^ "Ten Little Niggers". Radio Times. No. 1263. 26 December 1947.
52. ^ "Ten Little Indians at Two New York City playhouses 1944-1945". The Broadway League, including cast and characters. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
53. ^ Christie, Agatha (1993). The Mousetrap and Other Plays. HarperCollins. p. 2. ISBN 0-00-224344-X.
54. ^ a b "Ten little niggers, stage production at Dundee Repertory Theatre". Dundee, Scotland: Scottish Theatre Archive – Event Details. August 1944. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
55. ^ "Ten little niggers staged at Dundee Repertory Theatre 1944 and 1965". National Library of Scotland. Archived from the original on 6 November 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
56. ^ "And Then There Were None". Review. This Is Theatre. 14 October 2005. Archived from the original on 10 August 2012. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
57. ^ "Ten Little Niggers". Radio Times. No. 1348. BBC TV. 20 August 1949. p. 39.
58. ^ "Season 4, Episode 20 'Ten Little Niggers'". Play of the Week. ITV. 13 January 1959.
59. ^ "And Then There Were None to air on BBC1 on Boxing Day 2015". Radio Times. 2 December 2015.
60. ^ "Family Guy Hit a Creative Peak with Its Agatha Christie-Style Murder Mystery". gamerant.com. 21 July 2021.
61. ^ "And Then There Were None in Japan". Agatha Christie. Agatha Christie Limited. 6 March 2017. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
62. ^ "そして誰もいなくなった" [And Then There Were None]. TV Asahi (in Japanese). TV Ashi. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
63. ^ Casamassina, Matt (29 February 2008). "Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None Review (Wii)". IGN. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
64. ^ "Peká Editorial website". Archived from the original on 20 October 2014. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
65. ^ Wrap PRO Staff (5 November 2014). "Rooster Teeth Premieres Interactive Murder Mystery Web Series". WrapPRO. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
66. ^ 早川書房が新たなマンガサイトを開設、「同志少女よ、敵を撃て」コミカライズなど掲載. Comic Natalie (in Japanese). Natasha, Inc. 3 July 2024. Retrieved 21 February 2026.
67. ^ そして誰もいなくなった. Hayacomic (in Japanese). Hayakawa Publishing. Retrieved 21 February 2026.
68. ^ アガサ・クリスティー「そして誰もいなくなった」コミカライズ版全3巻、早川書房から. Comic Natalie (in Japanese). Natasha, Inc. 26 February 2025. Retrieved 21 February 2026.
69. ^ Loveridge, Lynzee (20 February 2026). "Viz Media Adds Minoji Kurata's Apothecary Diaries Manga, New Series from Inio Asano, Paru Itagaki, More". Anime News Network. Retrieved 20 February 2026.

• And Then There Were None at the official Agatha Christie website
• Spark Notes for novel