155. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Often cited as the most ingenious of Christie’s novels, And Then There Were None has had a chequered titular history. It was originally Ten Little Niggers, after a Victorian minstrel show song published by Frank Green in 1869, in which ten boys are bumped off in various unpleasant ways. Christie’s novel, following the song, involved ten deaths, and was set on the consummately un-PC ‘Nigger Island’ off the coast of Devon. As the twentieth century wore on, the title was tweaked variously as Ten Little Indians and And Then There Were None (the last line of the original song): but Ten Little Niggers persisted in Fontana reprints until (quite astonishingly) as late as 1981. When adapted as a play and film the work acquired several further titles, with one production trying to mend matters by calling itself Ten Little Redskins.

Consulted:
Sanders, Dennis; Lovallo, Len: The Agatha Christie Companion (1984)

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