Composition History
"I had written this book because it was so difficult to do that the idea fascinated me...I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of planning, and I was pleased with what I had made out of it...It was well received and reviewed, but the person who was really pleased with it was myself, for I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been,"
-Agatha Christie, "Author's Note" from And Then There Were None
Introduction to Composition History
With Christie's plethora of crime novel successes and her world renown legacy for both the quantity of novels she has written and the quality in which they were produced, the essential question of "How did she do it?" arises. Surely she must have had a method to her composition. Christie herself admitted the concept of And Then There Were None was quite a challenge, but it was this challenge that prompted her enthusiasm for creating it. So how did she do it? What are her methods?
For a long time, her composition methods for not only this novel, but all of her works, has been nearly as mysterious as one of her plots. That is because "...Agatha Christie's Notebooks remain a closely protected, largely unknown, treasure," (Curran, 2009, 41). However, by analyzing these notebooks, clues on how the Queen of Crime devised her novels begin to be unveiled.
The Essence of Agatha Christie: Writing
Watch to see Christie's Secret Notebooks and learn about her composition method.
The Notebooks
Christie’s process for creating her novel is just as mysterious as the contents it holds. Her collection of notebooks that detail the ideas and planning of her over 80 novels have been protected and relatively unknown, and while some of her novels have extensive details in these notebooks, And Then There Were None has little recorded, or at least little that has survived (Curran, 2009, 45). Despite the growing intrigue about these notebooks, they have never been on public display. In her autobiography, Christie briefly mentioned the notebooks as holders of her ideas when she said, “...I jot down my splendid idea in an exercise book...I usually have about half a dozen on hand, and I use them to make notes in them of ideas that had struck me, or about some poison or drug, or a clever swindling I had read about in the paper,” (Christie as cited by Curran, 2009, 41).
Despite holding a treasure trove of notes and outlines, the appearance of the notebooks themselves is less than impressive according to their primary studier, John Curran, who noted that most of them really are just exercise books that could be mistaken for a child’s school journal (Curran, 2009, 42). While many of her notebooks do chart out story ideas, several also have nothing to do with her literature. Some detail chemical formulae, simple household lists, and reminders. Though there are a great many notebooks that have been found and studied, several of her novels including The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd have no notes or outlines present, causing speculation that not all of her notes have been preserved. Christie herself noted that, “...what I invariably do is lose the exercise book,” (Christie as cited by Curran, 2009, 41). Despite this, the evidence of planning and plotting within the notebooks are fascinating to see. John Curran’s Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks not only analyzes several of these books, but it also shows images of pages of the notebooks as well. He describes them best when saying, “...these Notebooks are unique and priceless literary artefacts,” (Curran, 2009, 42).
Notebook 65
Unfortunately, And Then There Were None has little evidence of the “tremendous amount of planning” Christie wrote that she needed for the book. What is present from the crafting of the story comes from Notebook 65. Despite not having meticulous notes, the notes that are present offer interesting insight as they detail several characters that were never present in the final book. In fact, “At no point are ten characters listed,” (Curran, 2009, 112). Her lists of characters both include a husband and wife duo, who would later be Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. In her first list, her notes on them appear as follows:
“Man and Wife- Servants (did in old lady)”
Her second list of characters details something similar in saying, “10 11. Man and wife servant” (Notebook 65 as cited by Curran, 2009, 113).
Other elements of the plot additionally appear in the notebook as Christie includes different variations of the unknown host’s initials and the disappearing collection of figurines with each death. The major reason Curran argues that Notebook 65 is not the sole place for Christie's plans for the novel is that after one blank page, the final seven murders of the novel and the Scotland Yard scene are all detailed in a relatively small space. All that is noted about the final portion of the novel is:
“Epilogue- Letter in bottle- he describes how it was done” (Notebook 65 as cited by Curran, 2009, 115).
Though there is not great detail in Notebook 65, the evidence that is present is fascinating and greatly contributory to understanding the composition history of the novel itself.
Her Process
1955- Agatha Christie Interview- How to Write a Best-Selling Novel