Many Agatha Christie stories features ghosts, hauntings and illusions of the dead. In most instances, Christie's characters are figuratively haunted by the dead. In several adaptations of her work, retellings embrace these morose encounters with violence and death. And Then There Were None's (1939, hereafter None) enduring popularity demonstrates how closely Agatha Christie is aligned to the Gothic. This book demonstrates the impact that themes of death, hauntings and the Fantastic have in Christie's work in order to illuminate her relationship to the Gothic and the horror genre. For instance, the following analysis of None explores the influence Christie has had on the modern horror genre through the relationship between None's narrative and the slasher film. The Fantastic, a key framework of this chapter, is this uneasy liminal space between the supernatural and real environments. In the Fantastic narrative, the focalised character, and the viewer, are positioned in a questioning state as to what is real and what is the figment of one's imagination. Horror and gothic aesthetics are utilised to achieve this mode.

The story of the book itself has evolved dramatically throughout its various incarnations. Previous titles Ten Little Ni***rs and Ten Little Indians were rightfully scrapped due to their racist language. Upon its publication in the United States in 1940, publisher Dodd, Mead and Company used the final line of the children's poem that structured the story. The book was first adapted by Christie herself for the stage in 1943.