Ten Little Niggers

Ten Little Niggers, later re-titled And Then There Were None, and also titled Ten Little Indians, is considered author Agatha Christie’s best and most ambitious work. The mystery novel has been adapted for both theatre and cinema and has remained highly influential in the mystery genre.The novel is centered around a large murder mystery based on an infamous blackface minstrel song that describes a group of people who die under strange circumstances one by one. Due to the racist original title (1939), the book was re-titled And Then There Were None in 1940, and it was also published as (also overtly racist) Ten Little Indians in 1964. The book’s original title is not the only reason it is a highly controversial piece of writing. Racism and orientalism are found throughout the novel, and some non-US publications still use versions of the original title.And Then There Were None has sold over 100 million copies worldwide.

Ten Little Niggers was first published in 1939 by The Crime Club. The book has an orange cloth cover and a distinctive green dust jacket illustrated by Stephen Bellman. Along with the racist title, the dust jacket features racist caricatures of black people being plucked one by one by an unknown white hand. The first edition also comes marked with a printed stamped seal bearing the phrase “Sign of a Good Detective Novel”.

The first edition of this book published under the title And Then There Were None was first published in 1940 by Dodd, Mead, and Company.