And Then There Were None
1939 novel by 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. It has been adapted for film, television, radio, theatre, and other media more often than any other of Christie's works. In 2015, it was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a global vote organised by the author's estate.
The story takes place on an isolated island off the coast of Devon. Ten individuals 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, and regarded it as a better piece of craftsmanship than anything else she had written.
The novel received largely positive reviews on first publication, with critics praising the ingenuity of its plot, and it has since been frequently named among the greatest crime novels ever written. In 1990 the Crime Writers' Association ranked it nineteenth on its list of the best crime novels, and in 1995 the Mystery Writers of America placed it tenth on a comparable list.
The book was first published in the United Kingdom by Collins Crime Club in 1939 as Ten Little Niggers, after an 1869 minstrel song that forms the central element of the plot.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “And Then There Were None” as 1939 novel by Agatha Christie. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1939 novel by Agatha Christie. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q214132. VIAF identifies the subject as 313145424580486831117. The Library of Congress control number is n84144802. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 2007, 2015 and 1990.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “And Then There Were None” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.