And Then There Were None Lesson Plan

Discuss the Van Dine Principle with the class.

Detective fiction works best under a set of rules known in the genre as the Van Dine Principle. This principle, articulated in an early twentieth century essay, asserts first that detective fiction works only if the truth of the mystery is hidden throughout the book. The killer cannot be revealed until the final pages of the book. It is not enough simply to hide the motivations or the means by which a murder was committed, although this is part of the game-playing dimension of the novel. The identity of the killer must also remain hidden.

The second part of this Van Dine principle works in concert with the first. This is...