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Introduction

And Then There Were None is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939^[1] under the title Ten Little Niggers^[2][3] and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company in January 1940 under the title And Then There Were None.^[4] In the novel, ten people, who have previously been complicit in the deaths of others but have escaped notice and/or punishment, are tricked into coming onto an island. Even though the guests are the only people on the island, they are all mysteriously murdered one by one, in a manner paralleling, inexorably and sometimes grotesquely, the old nursery rhyme, "Ten Little Indians". The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6)^[2] and the US edition at $2.00.^[4] The novel has also been published and filmed under the title Ten Little Indians.

It is Christie's best-selling novel with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery and the seventh most popular book of all time.^[5] It has been adapted into several plays, films, and a video game.