What is Agatha Christie's best-selling novel?

Agatha Christie’s best-selling novel is And Then There Were None, a closed-circle mystery in which ten strangers are drawn into a deadly trap.

The novel was first published in Britain in 1939 and became one of Christie’s most commercially successful works. Its isolated setting, carefully arranged deaths, and unusually difficult solution helped make it a landmark of crime fiction. Christie reportedly regarded the book as one of her most challenging plots because the characters had to die one by one without the murderer becoming obvious.

The book’s publication history includes an important title change. Its original British title used a racist term that is now considered deeply offensive; American publication in 1940 used And Then There Were None, taken from the final words of the nursery rhyme central to the plot. Modern English-language editions use the current title.

The novel is often confused with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, another famous Christie bestseller and a celebrated mystery. However, And Then There Were None is the Christie novel generally credited with the highest sales, exceeding 100 million copies by 2007.