Endless Night is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 30 October 1967 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. It was one of her favourites of her own works and received some of the warmest critical notices of her career upon publication.
Contents
Etymology
The title comes from William Blake's Auguries of Innocence:
Every night and every morn,
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night,
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
Plot summary
The story begins with Michael Rogers, a twenty-two year old, telling the reader about his time as a chauffeur and how he met the architect Rudolf Santonix. He plans to one day have a house built by Santonix. Mike is poor though, and so cannot afford to hire Santonix to build the house he wants. Michael explains that he is a “rolling stone”; he is not content doing just one thing and so has held down many different jobs over the years. One day he wants to settle down in his dream house with his dream woman, but for now he cannot imagine settling down.
Mike is walking along a village road near the Gipsy's Acre property one day when he falls in love with the grounds. He fantasises about one day building a house there with the woman he loves. Curious to see what an auction is like, he goes to the auction for the property. Several people are interested in buying it, but the bid does not go high enough and no one ends up getting the property rights. Michael suspects that this is because of the supposed gipsy's curse over the property.
While walking through the grounds, he meets Fenella (Ellie) Guteman by chance, a wealthy heiress who wants to escape from her world of snobby friends, begging relatives, and restrictive financial advisors. She introduces herself as Fenella "Goodman," not wanting him to know her true identity as an heiress. They get along quite well and it seems like love at first sight. He shares his dream of owning the acre with her and she seems to reciprocate and encourage the idea. Ellie also mentions her lovely hired companion, Greta Andersen. Apparently, Greta has acted like a best friend to her for several years now and is described as very efficient. Mike appears incredibly jealous of their close relationship, despite never actually having met Greta before.
Mike then sees Ellie on and off over the next few weeks before she has to travel abroad for her twenty-first birthday. While away from Ellie, Michael discovers that the property he wants has finally been bought. He also returns to his mother's house to ask her for money to marry Ellie. It is quite clear that he does not like his mother and she does not like him. The situation reads as though she simply disapproves of his spontaneous lifestyle, but Michael claims that his mother knows him all too well. He leaves without the money.
When Ellie returns, she reveals to Mike that she is in fact, one of the wealthiest women in America and that she was the person who bought Gipsy's Acre. She wants to marry him and help fulfil his dream of building a beautiful house there. She does not mind leaving her home and family in America to move to England for him. They get married in a simple civil ceremony, without her family's knowledge. Michael is poor and Ellie fears that her family would not approve of him. When they find out, they are indeed highly disapproving of Mike. They fire Greta for helping arrange the marriage in secret. Regardless, Ellie refuses to leave Michael.
Characters
Michael Rogers: a 'rolling stone', who shifts from job to job.
Fenella Rogers (née Guteman): often called Ellie, she is a sweet heiress with a head for business.
Greta Andersen: Ellie's Scandinavian, blonde companion who manages and organises her life.
Claudia Hardcastle: a young woman in the village who shares Ellie's passion for horse-riding.
Cora Van Stuyvesant: Ellie's stepmother.
Andrew Lippincott: Ellie's guardian and trustee, a Bostonian, who disapproves of Greta's influence over Ellie.
Esther Lee: the village gypsy, who enjoys frightening people, especially when money is involved.
Stanford Lloyd: Claudia Hardcastle's former husband and one of Ellie's trustees.
Frank Barton: the husband of Ellie's aunt, a man who borrows but does not return.
Rudolf Santonix: a perfectionist architect who 'looks through you' and 'sees right through the other side'.
Major Phillpot: the village 'god' who befriends Michael.
Mrs. Rogers: Michael's mother.
Literary significance and reception
The novel was published in 1967. Christie later said she normally wrote her books in three to four months but wrote Endless Night in six weeks. The novel is dedicated "To Nora Prichard from whom I first heard the legend of Gipsy's Acre." Nora Prichard was the paternal grandmother of Mathew, Christie's only grandson. Gipsy's Acre was a field located on a Welsh moorland. The Times Literary Supplement of 16 November 1967 said, "It really is bold of Agatha Christie to write in the persona of a working-class boy who marries a poor little rich girl, but in a pleasantly gothic story of gypsy warnings she brings it all off, together with a nicely melodramatic final twist."
The Guardian carried a laudatory review in its issue of 10 November 1967 by Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley Cox) who said, "The old maestrina of the crime-novel (or whatever is the female of 'maestro') pulls yet another out of her inexhaustible bag with Endless Night, quite different in tone from her usual work. It is impossible to say much about the story without giving away vital secrets: sufficient to warn the reader that if he should think this is a romance he couldn't be more mistaken, and the crashing, not to say horrific suspense at the end is perhaps the most devastating that this surpriseful author has ever brought off."
Maurice Richardson in The Observer of 5 November 1967 began, "She changes her style again and makes a determined and quite suspenseful attempt to be with it." He finished, "I shan't give away who murders whom, but the suspense is kept up all the way and Miss Christie's new demi-tough, streamlined style really does come off. She'll be wearing black leather pants next, if she isn't already." The poet and novelist Stevie Smith chose the novel as one of her Books of the Year in the same newspaper's issue of 10 December 1967 when she said, "I mostly read Agatha Christie this year (and every year). I wish I could write more about what she does for one in the way of lifting the weight, and so on."
Robert Barnard: "The best of the late Christies, the plot a combination of patterns used in Ackroyd and Nile (note similarities in treatment of heiress/heroine's American lawyers in Nile and here, suggesting she had been rereading). The murder occurs very late, and thus the central section seems desultory, even novelettish (poor little rich girl, gypsy's curse, etc.). But all is justified by the conclusion. A splendid late flowering."
Adaptations
"The Case of the Caretaker"
A short story collection by Agatha Christie, titled Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories, published in October 1979, features a short story called "The Case of the Caretaker" whose overall plot is the same as Endless Night, although the character names are different.
"‘The Case of the Caretaker’ was first published in the Strand Magazine, January 1942, and then in the USA in the Chicago Sunday Tribune, 5 July 1942." from "Miss Marple – Miss Marple and Mystery: The Complete Short Stories (Miss Marple)" by Agatha Christie
Endless Night (1972 film)
In 1972, Sidney Gilliat directed a film adaption starring Hayley Mills, Britt Ekland, Per Oscarsson, Hywel Bennett and George Sanders (who died by suicide before the film's release). The film received mixed reviews, and following an unsuccessful run in the United Kingdom, was not released theatrically in the United States.
Christie was initially pleased by Gilliat's involvement and the casting. However, she was disappointed in the finished product, calling it "lacklustre". She also voiced her reservations about the film featuring a brief nude scene with Ekland at the end.
Saturday Theatre (BBC Radio 4)
Endless Night was presented as a one-hour radio play in the Saturday Theatre strand on BBC Radio 4 on 30 August 2008 at 2:30 pm. The play's recording took place at Broadcasting House and had an original score composed by Nicolai Abrahamsen.
Adaptor: Joy Wilkinson
Producer/Director: Sam Hoyle
Cast:
Jonathan Forbes as Mike
Lizzy Watts as Ellie
Sara Stewart as Greta
Joan Walker as Cora/Mike's Mother
Victoria Lennox as Mrs. Lee
Chris Pavlo as Mr. Constantine/Auctioneer/Policeman/Assistant
John Rowe as Philpott/Lippincott
Joseph Tremain as Young Mike/Army Boy
Dan Starkey as Santonix/Frank
Thomas Brown-Lowe as Oscar
Graphic novel adaptation
Endless Night was released by HarperCollins as a graphic novel adaptation on 3 November 2008, adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq (ISBN 0-00-727533-1).
Agatha Christie's Marple adaptation
Although the book did not feature Miss Marple, the novel was an extension of a Miss Marple story called "The Case of the Caretaker". It was filmed as part of the sixth series of Agatha Christie's Marple, starring Julia McKenzie. It aired first on Argentina's Film&Arts on Wednesday 20 November 2013, Australia's ABC on Sunday 22 December 2013, and aired on ITV on Sunday 29 December 2013. This adaptation by Kevin Elyot remains fairly faithful to the book, although with the exception of adding Miss Marple.
French adaptation
A French adaptation as part of the television series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie was planned for 2021.
Television adaptation
In May 2025 a television series was greenlit by BBC and BritBox International. Sarah Phelps will adapt for Mammoth Screen while Fifth Season has worldwide rights. Filming will occur later on in the year.
New film version
In December 2025 it was announced that a new film adaptation would be made for Studiocanal. It is set to be adapted by Emily Siegel, and directed by Jonathan Entwistle.
Publication history
The UK edition retailed at eighteen shillings (18/-) and the US edition at $4.95.
1967, Collins Crime Club (London), 30 October 1967, Hardcover, 224 pp
1968, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1968, Hardcover, 248 pp
1969, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, 181 pp
1970, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 192 pp
1972, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 342 pp, ISBN 0-85456-115-3
2011, HarperCollins; Facsimile edition, Hardcover: 224 pages, ISBN 978-0-00-739570-5
In the US, the novel was first serialised in two parts in The Saturday Evening Post from 24 February (Volume 241, Number 4) to 9 March 1968 (Volume 241, Number 5) with illustrations by Tom Adams.