Content note: This post examines the publication history of Agatha Christie’s novel and the evolution of its title and associated rhyme. To document that history accurately, it includes direct quotations of period wording that contains racial slurs. Such language is unacceptable in modern usage; it appears here only as part of quoted historical material, for context and analysis.
Today I’d like to talk a little about Agatha Christie — more precisely, about one of her most famous works, the novel “Ten Little Niggers“. In Russian, both the novel and the 1987 Soviet film adaptation by Stanislav Govorukhin are still known under the title Desyat negrityat (“Ten Little Negroes”). In Russian usage, the word negrityonok historically functioned as a neutral racial descriptor rather than a slur, which partly explains why the title remained unchanged in that cultural context.
I first encountered this work in childhood — not through the book, but through Stanislav Govorukhin’s 1987 film adaptation, released in Russian as Desyat negrityat (and often referred to in English as Ten Little Indians). I saw it a year later, while vacationing at the seaside with my parents. The film was being shown at the resort cinema, and if I remember correctly, my younger brother and I even went without our parents.
I remember how that closed-circle mystery (Christie specialized in exactly that kind of structure), combined with an excellent cast and the oppressive atmosphere of the production, made an indelible impression on me. It didn’t exactly frighten me, but it was impossible to look away as, over the course of the story, nearly all the main characters disappear one by one. And yet — what could an eleven-year-old boy, which is what I was at the time, really understand of it? Back then I looked like this (not exactly a heartthrob, of course, but still reasonably presentable):
That’s why I only started paying attention to the details of the book and its nuances much later. For example, I happened to learn that Stanislav Govorukhin was the first to make a screen adaptation under the original title. That’s when I began digging into these facts — and today I want to share them with you as well, because I’m sure very few people know about them.
Let’s start with the book’s title — I think it will immediately explain a lot. The novel was first published in 1939, and its original title was Ten Little Niggers, which does indeed correspond to “Ten Little Negroes.” In the United States, however, that wording is considered offensive. Black people may sometimes use the term among themselves, but if a person of another race says it, it is seen as a racial slur — and it had been regarded that way in the U.S. since the early 20th century, long before Agatha Christie wrote the novel.
That said, Christie wasn’t trying to insult anyone. With a small spoiler, let me briefly remind you of the setup. A group of strangers, invited by letter, travels to an island, gathered there for unclear reasons. In each guest’s room there is a sheet with a nursery rhyme about ten little “niggers,” and in the main room stand ten figurines of those same “little niggers.” Then, one by one, the guests begin to die under mysterious circumstances; each time it happens, one figurine disappears, and the survivors start noticing the parallels between the deaths and the rhyme.
And Christie didn’t invent that nursery rhyme for the book — it was widely known.
It is believed that versions of this song were performed in various shows both by Black performers and in blackface — that is, when white performers portrayed Black people by darkening their faces with shoe polish. In 1869, a certain Frank J. Green adapted the song and published it in print.
The original text of the version published by Frank Green went as follows (the slur is partially redacted):
Ten little n——— boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self, and then there were nine.Nine little n——— boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself, and then there were eight.Eight little n——— boys traveling in Devon;
One said he’d stay there, and then there were seven.Seven little n——— boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in half, and then there were six.Six little n——— boys playing with a hive;
A bumble-bee stung one, and then there were five.Five little n——— boys going in for law;
One got in chancery, and then there were four.Four little n——— boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one, and then there were three.Three little n——— boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one, and then there were two.Two little n——— boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up, and then there was one.One little n——— boy living all alone;
He got married, and then there were none.
Interestingly, later versions slightly altered the text. For example, instead of “nigger boys,” some editions used simply “niggers,” and certain verbs were shifted into different tenses. In Agatha Christie’s version, even the fate of some of the characters changed quite dramatically.
The rhyme became widely popular in Europe as well and was republished with new illustrations. Here are a couple of pages from an 1897 edition:
For us, this could probably be seen as something akin to the spooky rhymes children used to tell one another — only in verse. The rhyme itself was known even in Russia. For example, there was an illustrated 1903 edition in which it was titled The Ballad of Ten Little Negroes, and in the text the word negryonok was used instead of the more familiar Russian form negrityonok:
Not in all languages does a word derived from the root “negro” carry a derogatory or racially discriminatory meaning. Russian is one such example. Historically, the Russian Empire did not practice large-scale oppression of people from the African continent, and in some cases individuals of African origin who happened to arrive in those lands — often referred to in older sources as “Moors” — could enjoy social positions that were, at times, even more secure than those of many native inhabitants, such as serfs.
For example, one of the most well-known Africans in Russian history was taken under the personal patronage of Tsar Peter I, who reportedly treated him almost like an adopted son and arranged his marriage to a noblewoman. This story was later dramatized in the Soviet film The Tale of How Tsar Peter Married Off His Moor, in which the Moor was played — somewhat ironically — by the very fair-skinned Vladimir Vysotskiy. A direct descendant of that same Moor was Alexander Pushkin, widely regarded as Russia’s greatest poet — often described simply as “our everything.”
That is precisely why the word negr was never perceived in Russian as inherently offensive: at its core, it was understood simply as a transliteration of a word meaning “black,” nothing more. As people used to say — somewhat ironically — “It’s over there, in America, that they lynch Black people; here we love them — after all, we even have a university named after Patrice Lumumba.”
So in the Russian translation, the rhyme remained very much in keeping with the original, still featuring “little Negroes.” Here is a version from the translation by Larisa Georgievna Bespalova (I am leaving it in the original Russian, since the wording itself is part of the cultural context discussed above):
Десять негритят отправились обедать,
Один поперхнулся, их осталось девять.Девять негритят, поев, клевали носом,
Один не смог проснуться, их осталось восемь.Восемь негритят в Девон ушли потом,
Один не возвратился, остались всемером.Семь негритят дрова рубили вместе,
Зарубил один себя – и осталось шесть их.Шесть негритят пошли на пасеку гулять,
Одного ужалил шмель, их осталось пять.Пять негритят судейство учинили,
Засудили одного, осталось их четыре.Четыре негритенка пошли купаться в море,
Один попался на приманку, их осталось трое.Трое негритят в зверинце оказались,
Одного схватил медведь, и вдвоем остались.Двое негритят легли на солнцепеке,
Один сгорел – и вот один, несчастный, одинокий.Последний негритенок поглядел устало,
Он пошел повесился, и никого не стало.
Presumably for that reason, the book in Russia is still published under its original historical title, as is the 1987 film adaptation — which, incidentally, remains one of the most faithful screen versions of the novel (there is a slight difference in the ending, specifically in the motivation behind one of the culprit’s actions, but it is not particularly significant).
But what happened to the English and other translations? In the United Kingdom, the novel continued to be published under its original title until the 1980s, largely without alteration. After that, the original title was withdrawn from publication and sale, and publishers adopted the American title, which had already become established by then.
In the United States, the title containing the word “niggers” would have caused immediate public outrage; accordingly, the novel was never published there under that name.
In the first American edition in 1940, the novel was retitled with the far more neutral-sounding And Then There Were None, under which it is best known today (and which British publishers ultimately adopted as well). But changing only the title would not have been enough, since the entire plot revolves around the rhyme. So the rhyme was altered too. The “little niggers” in the text became “little soldier boys,” the figurines in the drawing room were now simply toy soldiers, and even the island (originally called Nigger Island, or Negro Island) was renamed Soldier Island.
Here is the revised version of the rhyme. Notice that compared to Green’s 1869 version, not only were some verb forms slightly adjusted — the ending changed as well. In Green’s printed text, the last boy gets married, and then “there were none.” In the later “soldier” version, the final “little soldier boy” meets a much darker fate.
Ten little soldier boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were Nine.Nine little soldier boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were Eight.Eight little soldier boys travelling in Devon;
One said he’d stay there and then there were Seven.Seven little soldier boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were Six.Six little soldier boys playing with a hive;
A bumble bee stung one and then there were Five.Five little soldier boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were Four.Four little soldier boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were Three.Three little soldier boys walking in the Zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were Two.Two little soldier boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was One.One little soldier boy left all alone;
He went and hanged himself and then there were None.
However, even that version was not the only one. In 1964, another edition of the novel was published in New York — this time under the title Ten Little Indians, with the word “soldier” replaced everywhere by “Indian.” Here is a scan of the page:
And the island, accordingly, was renamed Indian Island — or perhaps one might say “Indies Island,” since the word Indian in English technically refers to someone from India, yet ever since Columbus it was mistakenly applied to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas (Russian, unlike English, eventually developed two separate words — indeyets for a Native American and indiets for someone from India).
I have not been able to determine what prompted that particular choice of title, nor why this edition did not provoke objections either from people in India or from Native Americans — the Indigenous population of the Americas, who historically suffered devastation no less severe than that inflicted upon Black communities. Yet for whatever reason, that version of the novel was published, and several screen adaptations appeared under that title as well.
But even after the original title was withdrawn in the United Kingdom, it continued to be used in other languages. In France, for example, the title Dix petits nègres was not abandoned until 2020, amid the global wave of the Black Lives Matter movement. Christie’s great-grandson approved a new title: Ils étaient dix (“There Were Ten”).
In Russian — and in some other Slavic languages as well — there has so far been no broad push to rename the book. Still, I can see how, over time, the word negr may also become taboo in Russian, even though historically, and up to the present day, it has not carried the same negative charge there as it does in English.
In any case, I once found this whole chain of title changes genuinely interesting. I hope you did too.
And do watch Govorukhin’s film if you haven’t seen it — it really is excellent.
