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Some books are famous for their endings. "And Then There Were None" is one of them, and the best way to read it is still the way its first readers did in 1939: knowing nothing about how it ends. If you have somehow reached this point without learning how it turns out, you are in a lucky position. This introduction is written to keep you there. I will describe how the story begins and who is involved, and nothing more.
The author and the book
Agatha Christie was born on 15 September 1890 in Torquay, Devon, and died on 12 January 1976 in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. She is often described as the best-selling novelist of all time, with more than two billion copies of her books sold. Her first novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" (1920), introduced Hercule Poirot. During both world wars she worked in hospital dispensaries, and the knowledge of poisons she gained there found its way into many of her stories.
"And Then There Were None" was serialised in 1939, in the Daily Express in Britain and in the Saturday Evening Post in the United States, before Collins Crime Club published it in book form on 6 November 1939. Dodd, Mead and Company followed in the US in January 1940. The first British edition carried a different title that used a racial slur; the American edition used "And Then There Were None" from the start, and that title became the standard in Britain from 1985 onward. The novel is regarded as the best-selling mystery ever written, with more than 100 million copies sold by 2007.
How the story begins
Eight people, strangers to one another, accept invitations to a small, isolated island off the coast of Devon. The invitations come in the name of a Mr and Mrs Owen. The guests are a varied group: a retired judge, a doctor, a retired general who served in the First World War, a young games teacher, an elderly single woman, a wealthy young man, and others. None of them seems to have much in common with the rest.
At the house they are met by the butler and housekeeper, Thomas and Ethel Rogers, who explain that their employers have not yet arrived. In each bedroom, a nursery rhyme hangs in a frame on the wall. On the dining table stand ten small figurines.
Then, acting on written instructions, Rogers puts a record on the gramophone. A voice fills the room and, one by one, names every person present, accusing each of them of being responsible for someone's death in the past.
That is as far as I will go.
Why it is worth reading
The first pleasure is the situation itself. Christie strips a mystery down to its essentials: a closed setting, a host who never appears, and ten people who have just been publicly accused by an unknown voice. Nobody on the island knows whom to trust, and the reader is placed in exactly the same position. It is a remarkably simple arrangement, and that simplicity is what makes it so gripping.
The second pleasure is the cast. A judge, a doctor, a soldier, a teacher, servants: people of different ages and social positions, suddenly forced into one house. Getting to know each of them, and deciding how far to believe what they say about themselves, is its own kind of puzzle alongside the central mystery.
It is also worth knowing that Christie herself thought highly of this book. She described it as the most difficult of her novels to write, because of the complexity of the plot and its solution, and she considered it a better piece of craftsmanship than anything else she had written. It has been adapted for film, television, radio and the stage more often than any other of her works, which tells you how well the premise travels.
As you read, take a moment to notice the framed nursery rhyme in the bedrooms and the figurines on the dining table.
Who should read it
This novel suits anyone who enjoys "closed circle" mysteries, where a group is cut off from the outside world, and anyone curious to read one of the best-known classics of the form. It is also a good choice if you prefer tension and atmosphere to long investigative procedure, and if you like a story you can finish over a weekend.
One piece of advice: avoid reading summaries, reviews or adaptation plot outlines before you start. Go in knowing only what is written above, and let the book do the rest.
Sources
- Wikipedia, "Agatha Christie" (birth and death dates and places, first novel, work in hospital dispensaries, total sales) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie
- Wikipedia, "And Then There Were None" (UK and US first editions, serialisation, title history, setting and characters, sales, Christie's view of the book, adaptations) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None