# Historical Examples of Fanfic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 6, 2004, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-examples-of-fanfic/253728 "2004-07-06T01:56:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-examples-of-fanfic/253728/1 "2004-07-06T01:56:19Z")
OK, so fanfic is generally stories written about established characters by people who aren’t considered authorities to add to/revise the canon of said characters. I’m wondering what the oldest examples we know of are. I’m sure that the first example was some caveman who heard a story of his favorite Gilgamesh-type character and wanted to hear more of his adventures and started his own stories, some of which may have been passed down and is now considered canon. Also, as far as fanfic goes, if the original author doesn’t have a say in the matter, is it still fanfic if someone gets published with the work? I’m thinking of Sprague and Carter writing Conan stories after Howard’s death, or maybe the legion of Sherlock Holmes stories after Doyle’s death. Anyone else got any examples? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-examples-of-fanfic/253728/2 "2004-07-06T02:03:18Z")
Garrett P. Serviss wrote a sequel to _War of the Worlds_ by H. G. Wells titled _Edison’s Conquest of Mars_, in which Edison leads retaliatory strike against the red planet. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-examples-of-fanfic/253728/3 "2004-07-06T02:05:10Z")
Publish date on that was 1898. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-examples-of-fanfic/253728/4 "2004-07-06T03:01:51Z")
> [@Chairman Pow](#): > > OK, so fanfic is generally stories written about established characters by people who aren’t considered authorities to add to/revise the canon of said characters. Not quite. Fanfic is stories written about established characters by people who are not the legal copyright holder of the work in question and who don’t have the legal copyright holder’s permission to publish stories using those characters. Fanfiction as we know it is a creation of copyright law. > [@Chairman Pow](#): > > I’m sure that the first example was some caveman who heard a story of his favorite Gilgamesh-type character and wanted to hear more of his adventures and started his own stories, some of which may have been passed down and is now considered canon. As your own example shows, the tradition of derivitive storytelling is an ancient one. “Fanfic” in the strict definition of the term (the one I gave above) couldn’t exist before modern copyright law, and as far as I know there are no examples of it before the early 20th century (when Sherlock Holmes fanfiction made its debut). However, if you’re looking for examples of historical ‘fanfic’ writers similar to the fellow in your Gilgamesh example, here’s a short list: Sophicles, Aeschylus, Euripides, Vergil, Shakespeare, Mallory, Dante, Milton. It was the NORM once for authors to freely use and adapt others’ work. That tradition only changed with the evolution of copyright laws. > [@Chairman Pow](#): > > Also, as far as fanfic goes, if the original author doesn’t have a say in the matter, is it still fanfic if someone gets published with the work? I’m thinking of Sprague and Carter writing Conan stories after Howard’s death, or maybe the legion of Sherlock Holmes stories after Doyle’s death. If the work is no longer under copyright, writing a derivative story based on it is legal, and the result isn’t technically fanfic. In fact, if it’s good enough, you can even get it published. Examples of this would be the novel _Wide Sargasso Sea_ (which fills in part of the backstory of _Jane Eyre_) and the play _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_ (which is a re-working of _Hamlet_). Stories authorized by the legal copyright holders of a deceased author’s works (such as Howard) aren’t fanfic either. Those Conan stories you mention are authorized by Howard’s estate, and thus can be legally published. Fanfic merely denotes a legal status: a derivitive work which cannot be legally published. Artistically, it’s no different from any other form of derivative storytelling, and we humans have been doing THAT since we first sat around a campfire, way back in the Pleistocene. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-examples-of-fanfic/253728/5 "2004-07-06T03:58:40Z")
As I remember, there was an unauthorized sequel to “Don Quixote” floating around for a few years before the “real” sequel was published by the original author. I’m sure someone can remember more details than I can. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-examples-of-fanfic/253728/6 "2004-07-06T04:53:21Z")
John Polidori wrote _The Vampyre_ in 1819. It was the first vampire story in the English language and it was an immediate success. Several other authors quickly wrote vampire stories or plays using Polidori’s character Lord Ruthven. ---
**Author:** ![Dugrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@Dugrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dugrik)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-examples-of-fanfic/253728/7 "2004-07-06T05:42:33Z")
Virgil was so enamoured of Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey, that he took a minor Trojan prince and wrote an adventure for him – The Aeneid. ---
**Author:** ![Manatee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@Manatee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manatee)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-examples-of-fanfic/253728/8 "2004-07-06T06:24:29Z")
Lots of people wrote continuations of Chaucer’s _The Canterbury Tales_. Heck, by the OP’s definition, most of medieval literature would count. ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-examples-of-fanfic/253728/9 "2004-07-06T15:30:29Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > Not quite. Fanfic is stories written about established characters by people who are not the legal copyright holder of the work in question and who don’t have the legal copyright holder’s permission to publish stories using those characters. > > Fanfiction as we know it is a creation of copyright law. Ah, that’s a good definition, certainly better than what I was working with. Thanks.