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	ingrid 2009-05-18 08:08 pm UTC (link)
	The New Testament could count with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as the BNFs and everyone else relegated, eventually, to The Apocrypha Archive - the old "A" in AU. (Reply to this)

	phosfate 2009-05-18 08:14 pm UTC (link)
	There were several "improved" versions of Ivanhoe, in which the 'Hoe goes off with Rebecca instead of blondie girl. (Reply to this)

	scifantasy 2009-05-18 08:15 pm UTC (link)
	"First Fandom" is a term for SF fandom, from the Gernsback/Campbell pulp era. Worldcon and other cons grew out of that. It may not be the oldest, but it's probably the codifier of the concept and the progenitor of most modern forms. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-18 08:23 pm UTC

	mmanurere 2009-05-18 08:17 pm UTC (link)
	Whatever the first fandom may have been, I still hold to the school of thought that names The Pillow Book as the first blog. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-18 08:23 pm UTC

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blue_penguin, 2009-05-18 09:23 pm UTC

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innocentsmith, 2009-05-18 11:46 pm UTC

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moonjaguar, 2009-05-19 05:24 am UTC

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ayezur, 2009-05-19 05:02 pm UTC

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mmanurere, 2009-05-20 04:00 am UTC

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ayezur, 2009-05-20 04:26 am UTC

	solelyfictional 2009-05-18 08:45 pm UTC (link)
	I always think Dante's Divine Comedy reads like Mary Sue RPF (well, the Inferno and as far into Purgatory as a got - Purgatory is, appropriately, quite dull). (Reply to this)(Thread)

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cygnia, 2009-05-18 08:49 pm UTC

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solelyfictional, 2009-05-18 08:55 pm UTC

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cmdr_zoom, 2009-05-18 09:39 pm UTC

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azazello, 2009-05-18 09:40 pm UTC

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rennyn_alerothi, 2009-05-18 11:36 pm UTC

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stimutacs, 2009-05-18 11:50 pm UTC

The link, she is borked! -

stimutacs, 2009-05-18 11:51 pm UTC

Re: The link, she is borked! -

adevyish, 2009-05-19 07:05 am UTC

Re: The link, she is borked! -

stimutacs, 2009-05-19 07:10 am UTC

Re: The link, she is borked! -

kelschuu, 2009-05-19 11:08 am UTC

Re: The link, she is borked! -

stimutacs, 2009-05-19 09:23 pm UTC

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j_lunatic, 2009-05-18 11:50 pm UTC

melannen
2009-05-18 09:38 pm UTC (link)

What makes you think Gilgamesh *didn't* have contemporary fanficcers? There's pretty incontrovertible evidence that the whole Enkidu thing was just Babylonian slash writers messing with a Sumerian character. (The Sumerian stories are much crackier but less slashy.)

If you're counting anything that people wrote as transformative of earlier stories, "fanfic" is about 90% of all fiction written before about the 1880s, when international copyright really got going. Writing stories based on other people's stories was what people *did*.

If you're looking at fandoms that actually have some sort of continuity of community and fanon right to the modern day, and operated in a way that today's fans would recognize, though, I would probably say thet oldest "modern" fandom is Sherlock Holmes, with honorary mentions to H.P. Lovecraft and Jane Austen.

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-18 11:32 pm UTC

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melannen, 2009-05-18 11:44 pm UTC

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darkecology, 2009-05-19 08:52 am UTC

issendai
2009-05-18 09:48 pm UTC (link)

Although it's clearly not the first fandom, the Arthurian mythos as we know it is fanon-turned canon. Vast heaping wallops of it are French courtly fanfic of the Mabinogion, including new Sueriffic characters (Lancelot, for a start), rearranged love triangles (Guinevere originally got down and dirty with Mordred), and new episodes (Arthur & Co. go to the Castle of the Maidens/Castle of the Wounded Knight/Forgotten Castle/Dangerous Castle/Way Out There Castle). There's pretty much everything except high school AUs, and you know they would have done them if they had high schools in the middle ages.

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melannen, 2009-05-18 10:08 pm UTC

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tachikoma01, 2009-05-18 10:48 pm UTC

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princessstarr, 2009-05-19 05:37 am UTC

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inarticulate, 2009-05-18 11:12 pm UTC

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singe, 2009-05-20 04:53 am UTC

	palabradot 2009-05-18 11:03 pm UTC (link)
	And don't forget the many rewrites of Romeo and Juliet, where the parents stopped the double suicide at the last moment! (Reply to this)(Thread)

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-18 11:33 pm UTC

	einini 2009-05-18 11:25 pm UTC (link)
	The Aeneid is Iliad fanfic: it's about a minor character from canon, giving him a much bigger part than in the original story, and he gets laid. Aeneas was Vergil's Gary Stu! (Reply to this)

	stimutacs 2009-05-18 11:31 pm UTC (link)
	Tbh, I think fanfic (in the loosest sense of the word) goes back before writing to when people told stories by word of mouth and changed them as they saw fit. I mean, the ancient mythologies are so fanfics about the gods the people worshipped/fanfics about how the world works. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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rennyn_alerothi, 2009-05-18 11:39 pm UTC

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stimutacs, 2009-05-18 11:44 pm UTC

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stimutacs, 2009-05-18 11:45 pm UTC

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rennyn_alerothi, 2009-05-18 11:50 pm UTC

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lysana, 2009-05-18 11:54 pm UTC

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stimutacs, 2009-05-18 11:54 pm UTC

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pariforma, 2009-05-19 04:38 pm UTC

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stimutacs, 2009-05-19 09:28 pm UTC

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pariforma, 2009-05-19 09:36 pm UTC

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stimutacs, 2009-05-19 09:40 pm UTC

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stimutacs, 2009-05-19 09:40 pm UTC

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pariforma, 2009-05-19 09:41 pm UTC

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stimutacs, 2009-05-19 09:46 pm UTC

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pariforma, 2009-05-19 09:46 pm UTC

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stimutacs, 2009-05-20 03:28 am UTC

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cmdr_zoom, 2009-05-19 11:55 pm UTC

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stimutacs, 2009-05-20 03:29 am UTC

	j_lunatic 2009-05-18 11:48 pm UTC (link)
	The early Jews (before the monotheists won) worshipped Asherah, a Semitic mother goddess, as the consort of Yahweh. The prophet Jeremiah railed against her worship, marking the first possible shipwank. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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lysana, 2009-05-18 11:55 pm UTC

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beachlass, 2009-05-19 02:04 am UTC

lysana
2009-05-18 11:51 pm UTC (link)

The hagiographies of (insert Irish saint predating the 9th century here) are hardcore fanfic. The saints are Mary Sue and Gary Stu'd to the point of being unrecognizable compared to their earliest forms. And who did the monks rip off? Why, everything from pagan mythology to the saints of other countries, of course. The damn snake story is ripped off from St. Hilaire, who only banished snakes (real ones!) from a small section of France. Patrick had to do him one better in order to help defend the diocese's case that he should be the patron saint of the island.

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rennyn_alerothi, 2009-05-18 11:55 pm UTC

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lysana, 2009-05-18 11:56 pm UTC

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-19 01:37 am UTC

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lysana, 2009-05-20 01:17 am UTC

	ealusaid 2009-05-19 12:12 am UTC (link)
	Not exactly what you were asking, but when people say Star Trek is the second fandom, they mean fandom as in "people go to conventions and exchange fanzines and write a lot of slash". In this definition, The Man From U.N.C.L.E is the "first fandom", and Star Trek is the second. It's the definition you see in a lot of fanac. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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cmdr_zoom, 2009-05-19 12:33 am UTC

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beachlass, 2009-05-19 02:05 am UTC

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-19 02:14 am UTC

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beachlass, 2009-05-19 02:43 am UTC

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-19 02:55 am UTC

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-19 06:16 pm UTC

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platedlizard, 2009-05-19 03:17 am UTC

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platedlizard, 2009-05-19 03:51 am UTC

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pfeffermuse, 2009-05-19 11:55 am UTC

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demonbean, 2009-05-19 05:38 am UTC

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aloysius, 2009-05-19 10:24 am UTC

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aloysius, 2009-05-19 10:32 am UTC

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pfeffermuse, 2009-05-19 11:37 am UTC

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aloysius, 2009-05-19 01:49 pm UTC

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-19 01:59 pm UTC

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aloysius, 2009-05-19 02:01 pm UTC

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-19 06:17 pm UTC

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kelschuu, 2009-05-19 01:31 pm UTC

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aloysius, 2009-05-19 01:43 pm UTC

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kelschuu, 2009-05-19 01:47 pm UTC

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cmdr_zoom, 2009-05-19 11:51 pm UTC

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lady_ganesh, 2009-05-20 12:46 am UTC

	ajatshatru 2009-05-19 02:02 am UTC (link)
	I remember reading Gilgamesh itself is a take on an earlier stuff - Bilgamesh (Reply to this)

rosehiptea
2009-05-19 03:28 am UTC (link)

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Samuel Richardson's Pamela, first published in 1740:

Pamela was the bestseller of its time. It was read by countless buyers of the novel and was also read aloud in groups.

[snip]

The novel was also integrated into sermons as an exemplar. It was even an early “multimedia” event, producing Pamela-themed cultural artifacts such as prints, paintings, waxworks, a fan, and a set of playing cards decorated with lines from Richardson's works.

Given the lax copyright laws at the time, many "unofficial" sequels were written and published without Richardson's consent. There were also several satires of the novel...

I guess it was sort of the Harry Potter of its day. But it's not the first fandom, I'd bet.

True confessions: I've never read it, partly because my high school English teacher described as a "a good cure for insomnia."

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crysiana, 2009-05-19 03:51 am UTC

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nekoneko, 2009-05-19 12:26 pm UTC

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jessenigma, 2009-05-19 09:48 pm UTC

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oxfordcomma, 2009-05-23 02:01 am UTC

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octopedingenue, 2009-05-30 07:22 am UTC

	jaseroque 2009-05-19 06:08 am UTC (link)
	I'll hold up The Tale of Genji as a possible 'first fandom'. Earlier stories were supposed to be retold, came from a history of retelling etc., but Genji was the first novel, and people discussed it, sought it out, argued over it and such... and there was almost definitely fanfiction written about it, too. (Reply to this)

	makeshyft 2009-05-19 07:17 am UTC (link)
	I totally ship Cain/Abel. Their hatesex was cool before Wincest ever started. (Reply to this)

	beejium 2009-05-19 07:22 am UTC (link)
	I'm officially making it my lifelong goal to find some cave art fanfic and pwn all y'all. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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singe, 2009-05-20 04:58 am UTC

kuromitsu
2009-05-19 10:28 am UTC (link)

It's not as old as some other fandoms people have mentioned, but The Count of Monte Cristo had a slew of unauthorized sequels - there are at least two Countess of Monte Cristo novels, then there's The Wife of Monte Cristo, The Return of Monte Cristo, The Son of Monte Cristo, and so on... and let's not get into the adaptations and how they all changed and/or "fixed" the novel (poor Haydée...).

Also, Anglo-Saxons wrote OOC AU fanfic about the Old Testament, so.

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	kelschuu 2009-05-19 11:03 am UTC (link)
	Incidentally, I was explaining the Epic of Gilgamesh to a friend of mine just yesterday, which included pointing out that the 12th tablet was clearly written by a different "author" than the first 11, and it included Enkidu COMING BACK FROM TEH DEAD!!!11 to be OMG BFFS!!!11 with Gilgamesh again. Ancient Sumerian fanfic. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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pariforma, 2009-05-19 04:36 pm UTC

	the_sun_is_up 2009-05-19 06:41 pm UTC (link)
	TV Tropes tells us that Little Women had something of a fandom, enough that readers at the time got pissed when the Jo/Laurie ship was sunk in favor of Amy/Laurie. And then Alcott wrote an open letter of sorts on the subject that basically said, "Fuck you, fandom," albeit in a much more polite and Victorian manner. (Reply to this)

	the_sun_is_up 2009-05-19 06:43 pm UTC (link)
	Also, the Book of Revelations is clearly Bible crackfic. As in some Christian scholars legit believe that the guy who wrote it was on some heavy hallucinogens at the time. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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cmdr_zoom, 2009-05-19 11:48 pm UTC

	blue_penguin 2009-05-19 06:59 pm UTC (link)
	What was the name of that woman in medieval times who thought she was married to Jesus? Because she's the proto-Snapewife, imo. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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atdrake, 2009-05-20 04:32 am UTC

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blue_penguin, 2009-05-20 05:20 am UTC

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oxfordcomma, 2009-05-23 02:03 am UTC

velvet_mace
2009-05-19 07:32 pm UTC (link)

I can't believe that the urge to discuss a story and even to write fanfic of it is something that sponaniously showed up last century. The only thing that has changed is the ability to communicate those ideas with others. Who knows how many people would have written fanfic of Gilgamesh if only they a) had the supplies and ability to write and b) had an audience they knew were interested in hearing what they had to say.

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cmdr_zoom, 2009-05-19 11:43 pm UTC

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velvet_mace, 2009-05-19 11:48 pm UTC

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velvet_mace, 2009-05-20 12:03 am UTC

	munchkinott 2009-05-19 08:46 pm UTC (link)
	I'm leaning towards declaring Akhenaten the first recorded BNF for his Aten AU. Which means he's got Henry VIII's meta post to the Pope beaten by about 2,000 years. First art by a fanboy? (Reply to this)

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