The US edition was released in January 1940 with the title And Then There Were None, taken from the last five words of the song. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as Ten Little Niggers, after an 1869 minstrel song that serves as a major plot element. At the time of her death it was reported that her estate was valued at 600 million pounds sterling, and that Prichard, who also owned the rights to Christie's record breaking play The Mousetrap was principal heir.And Then There Were None is a mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, who described it as the most difficult of her books to write. During their time at 'Greenway' the Hicks established a garden which the National Trust opened to the public in 2002.Īt her death in 2004, Rosalind Hicks was survived by her husband, and her son Mathew Prichard. She lived in Christie's 278 acre (1.1 km²)estate 'Greenway', on the River Dart, from 1968 until her death, however in 2000 she transferred much of the land to the National Trust. Her stated aim was to ensure Christie's works did not suffer from excessive commercialisation or trivialisation. David Suchet and Joan Hickson were Vice Presidents. Hicks founded, and was the president of the Agatha Christie Society from 1993 until her death.

The film was released under the title Innocent Lies and was met with moderate success. The company was also denied the right to use the name 'Agatha Christie' in any way. Hicks' action led to the company changing the name of the production, as well as the names of all the major characters. In 1995 Hicks took action against a company that was planning a film production of the novel Towards Zero, in which the setting would be updated to the current year and topics such as incest would be introduced. This resulted in a publication in 1984 by author Janet Morgan which received generally positive reviews but which was also criticised for failing to address the question of the mystery of Christie's disappearance. After several years of refusals Hicks finally agreed in the early 1980s to allow a biography to be written about Agatha Christie. In 1978 she was unsuccessful in her legal challenge to prevent the filming of Agatha (1979) in which Vanessa Redgrave played Christie in a fictionalised story of her disappearance. She established a reputation as a forthright and occasionally fierce woman, who fought to ensure that the books and plays her mother had written would not be exploited, and that any projects that made use of them, would not alter or discredit them. Upon Agatha Christie's death in 1976, Hicks inherited this right of veto, and took the role of protector of the integrity of these works. She kept a minority share which allowed her right of veto to any treatment or new publication of her work. Christie had set up a limited company to hold the rights to her works, and had sold the majority. She moved to Devon in 1968 to be near to her ageing mother and stepfather. For several years she raised her son Mathew alone, until she married Anthony Hicks in 1949. In 1941 she married Hubert Prichard, a soldier with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and was widowed in 1944 when he was killed in battle. Hicks remained on good terms with her father after her parents were divorced, but became close to her mother's second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan, and as a young woman considered following a similar career. Hicks said in the late 1980s that her mother had never been able to discuss the events of her disappearance with her, as she had no memory of them, which made her eventual decision to authorise a biography on her mother's life very difficult. When Mrs Christie returned with amnesia it only fuelled the interest of the media and subjected the family to closer scrutiny.

In her later years, she recalled being traumatised by her mother's well publicised disappearance in 1926, and the suggestion that she had met with foul play at the hand of her husband. Although she grew up with her mother's fame, she was never comfortable with it, and attempted to live her life with as much privacy as possible. Hicks was born in Torquay, England to Agatha and Archibald Christie. Rosalind Margaret Clarissa Hicks (née Christie) was the only child of author Agatha Christie, and from the time of Christie's death in 1976 worked to maintain and strengthen the reputation of her mother as a literary figure, and to protect the integrity of her works.

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