note Even more brain-twistingly, Oedipus Rex's mystery is also an example of The Killer in Me, which is generally seen as a twist on the expectations of the detective genre, despite appearing in one of the oldest recorded 'detective stories'!

Which will give you an idea of the depth of the rabbit-hole a quest for the Ur-example can lead you down. But Wait, There's More! Oedipus Rex, first performed in 429 BCE, depicts Oedipus investigating the cause of the plague that has struck his realm. But half-a-millennium earlier still, 'The Tale of the Three Apples' is a proto- Detective Story from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights Date: The earliest known extant copy of the Arabian Nights is a fragment that dates to the early 9th century CE, so, sometime in the early 800's - which would make 'The Tale of the Three Apples' the Ur-Example of the Detective Story, or at least a possible candidate. Nevertheless, while you may or may not know Poe's Dupin stories, you've probably encountered a certain Danish Prince named Hamlet, Date: between 15 who not only sets about to ensnare his uncle King Claudius, but even incorporates into his plans a play-within-a-play he dubs 'The Mousetrap'. Auguste Dupin stories before Dupin, there is no story genre of fictional detectives going about the business of solving crimes. When they're distinct, a Trope Maker differs from an Ur-Example in that the latter is realized to have met the definition of the trope only after later storytellers started doing it on purpose.įor instance, one of the pivotal Trope Makers of the Detective Story is Edgar Allan Poe's collection of C.

Often, an Ur-Example doubles as the Trope Maker or Genre Launch - but not always, and far less often with ancient tropes, which often evolved over a long period of time rather than suddenly bursting forth from someone's head, fully formed. 'Ur-' is a German prefix meaning 'proto-, primitive, or original'. The Ur-Example is the oldest known example of any given trope. They all have one, but we often don't know what work they're from.

Wolfenstein the old blood key