Agatha Christie
• Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller
– Born September 5, 1890
• Family
– Married Royal Flying Corps Colonel Archibald Christie in
1914
– Daughter Rosalind born in 1919
– Divorced 1928
– Married archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan September 11,
1930
• Agatha Christie died in Oxfordshire, England, on
January 12, 1976
Achievements:
• Started writing mysteries in response to a dare
from her sister.
• 1st novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles,
published in 1920.
• Works include:
– 80 novels and short story collections
– 4 works of nonfiction
– 14 plays, including The Mousetrap one of the
longest running plays in history.
– Two very well known characters- Hercule Poirot
and Miss Marple
Awards and Honors
• 1955- Mystery Writers of America Grand Master
award
• 1961- awarded an honorary degree from Exeter
University
• 1967- became president of The British Detection
Club
• 1971- Queen Elizabeth II awarded Christie with the
highest honor a female English citizen can receive:
the Order of the British Empire, Dame Commander.
And Then There Were None
Preview
The novel concerns a group of ten previously
unacquainted people who are lured via various
pretexts to Indian Island, a resort home off the
coast of Devon--and are promptly accused by
their unseen host of having escaped punishment
for past crimes. Cut off from the world and
fighting rising panic, they scramble to unmask the
killer even as their number is reduced in chilling
accordance with the "Ten Little Indians" nursery
rhyme displayed in rooms throughout the house.
Novel Information
• And Then There Were None was originally published
as Ten Little Indians
• Type of Work
– Novel
• Genre
– Murder Mystery
• Published
– 1939
• Ranks as one of Christie’s most popular and critically
acclaimed novels.
– Made into a stage play
– Several film versions
• Setting
– Mid to late 1930’s
– Indian Island, a fictional island off the English coast
• Narrator
– An unnamed omniscient individual
• Point of View
– Shifts back and forth between each of the 10
characters
• Tense
– past
• Tone
– Dark, foreboding , sinister, dramatic
Mystery Vocabulary
• accomplice- someone who helps commit a crime
• alibi-the story of where an accused person was at the
time of a crime.
• clue- something that appears to give information toward
solving a crime.
• crime - an act committed in violation of the law
• crime scene- where the crime took place
• deduce- to infer by logical reasoning
• detective - a person who investigates crimes and
gathers information (synonym: sleuth)
• evidence – something that is used as proof to solve a
crime
• hunch - a guess or feeling not based on known facts
• motive -the reason for committing a crime or to do
something or act in a certain way
• perpetrator- the person who commits an
illegal act
• red herring- a false lead that distracts
attention from the real lead or true
information
• suspect- the person or persons who appear to
have a motive to commit the crime
• victim - someone who is harmed or suffers
some loss
• witness - someone who saw or can give a
firsthand account of something