Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.
Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Introduction
Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Plot Summary
Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Detailed Summary & Analysis
Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Themes
Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Quotes
Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Characters
Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Symbols
Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Literary Devices
Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Quizzes
Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Theme Wheel
Brief Biography of Agatha Christie
Historical Context of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Other Books Related to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
- Full Title: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
- When Written: Early 1926
- Where Written: London and Oxfordshire
- When Published: June 1926
- Literary Period: “Golden Age” detective fiction
- Genre: Mystery Novel
- Setting: King’s Abbot (a small village in rural England)
- Climax: Hercule Poirot reveals that Dr. Sheppard is the killer
- Antagonist: Dr. Sheppard
- Point of View: First person (Dr. Sheppard)
Extra Credit for The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Popular. Agatha Christie is one of the most popular, widely-read novelists in history: for most of the 20th century, it was estimated that only the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare were more commonly read. To date, her books have sold some two billion copies, and she’s probably the most translated novelist of all time (103 languages to date). In addition, Christie’s play The Mousetrap holds the world record for longest initial theatrical run—it premiered in 1952 and is still running as of 2017, 25,000 performances later.
Breaking the rules. As every regular reader of detective novels knows, there are certain “rules” of the genre that no good detective novelist breaks. For example, in most detective novels, the fictional detective isn’t revealed to be the killer—it would be an unfair breach of readers’ “trust.” Over the years, Christie broke her contract with the reader on several occasions—and in her final novel about Hercule Poirot, Poirot is revealed to be the killer! Readers and critics have both praised and attacked Christie for challenging the formulas of detective fiction.