History OnceOriginalNowCommon / Literature

* Franchise/{{Zorro}} certainly qualifies. In the original novel, [[{{RichIdiotWithNoDayJob}} Don Diego Vega]]'s SecretIdentity is patently obvious to anyone familiar with basically any superhero comic book at all, including by PopculturalOsmosis, even if they're not familiar with Zorro as a franchise. Except many of those comics, most notably Franchise/{{Batman}} (to the point that with [[{{Film/BatmanBegins}} one exception to date]] every retelling of the [[{{DeathByOriginStory}} the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne]] shows them leaving a screening of a Zorro movie, usually ''Film/TheMarkOfZorro1940''), were ''inspired'' by Zorro in the first place. And even Zorro may have been inspired by ''The Scarlet Pimpernel''.

* Franchise/{{Zorro}} certainly qualifies. In the original novel, [[{{RichIdiotWithNoDayJob}} Don Diego Vega]]'s SecretIdentity is patently obvious to anyone familiar with basically any superhero comic book at all, including by PopculturalOsmosis, even if they're not familiar with Zorro as a franchise. Except many of those comics, most notably Franchise/{{Batman}} (to the point that with [[{{Film/BatmanBegins}} one exception to date]] every retelling of the [[{{DeathByOriginStory}} Wayne murders]] shows them leaving a screening of a Zorro movie, usually ''Film/TheMarkOfZorro1940''), were ''inspired'' by Zorro in the first place. And even Zorro may have been inspired by ''The Scarlet Pimpernel''.

* Franchise/{{Zorro}} certainly qualifies. In the original novel, [[{{RichIdiotWithNoDayJob}} Don Diego Vega]]'s SecretIdentity is patently obvious to anyone familiar with basically any superhero comic book at all, including by PopculturalOsmosis, even if they're not familiar with Zorro as a franchise. Except many of those comics, most notably Franchise/{{Batman}} (to the point that with [[{{Film/BatmanBegins}} one exception to date]] every retelling of the Wayne murders shows them leaving a Zorro movie), were ''inspired'' by Zorro in the first place. And even Zorro may have been inspired by ''The Scarlet Pimpernel''.

* Franchise/{{Zorro}} certainly qualifies. In the original novel, [[{{RichIdiotWithNoDayJob}} Don Diego Vega]]'s SecretIdentity is patently obvious to anyone familiar with basically any superhero comic book at all, including by PopculturalOsmosis, even if they're not familiar with Zorro as a franchise. Except many of those comics, most notably Frachise/{{Batman}} (to the point that with [[{{Film/BatmanBegins}} one exception to date]] every retelling of the Wayne murders shows them leaving a Zorro movie), were ''inspired'' by Zorro in the first place. And even Zorro may have been inspired by ''The Scarlet Pimpernel''.

** His books and those of the other authors mentioned here were among those reprinted by the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballantine_Adult_Fantasy_series Ballantine Adult Fantasy series]] starting in the mid-70s, founded by Lin Carter partly as an attempt to prove that Tolkien did not singlehandedly invent fantasy literature or WorldBuilding or even the StandardFantasySetting.

* Literature/NancyDrew can suffer from this. When the books about her first came out, a female detective as the protagonist of mystery novels for young adults was almost completely unheard of. Post-feminism, it's kind of hard to realize how influential she was (lots of prominent female politicians cite her as an inspiration). She precedes Ellen Ripley and Wonder Woman, and has been called one of the first feminists in American Fiction. Not to mention she was headstrong and adventurous, something that wasn't encouraged in children's literature (same goes for ''Literature/TheHardyBoys''). The sheer amount of imitators that have sprung up over the years Nowadays, YouMeddlingKids is a cliché in itself, and the books are seen as nostalgic at best and a little hokey at worst, while her utter perfection would have her written off as a MarySue if she were to appear for the first time today, especially if we're talking about the revised Nancy from 1959 and onwards.

* ''Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'' by Samuel Richardson is a particularly notorious example of this. Back in 1740 when the novel as a genre was still fairly new, it revolutionized the genre by introducing psychological analysis i.e. it focused on thoughts and emotions, rather than just actions. Since then, it has fallen victim to ValuesDissonance so hard that it might as well be considered DeaderThanDisco, with the unfortunate combination of having a main lead who's more or less completely perfect and being extremely preachy. Oh, and it throws in extremely dated ideas like how women must always obey their husbands for good measure. Heck, Richardson himself said he wrote it to persuade people to act more virtuously. When the author himself admits the entire novel is a morality lecture, you have trouble.

** Its setting was an UrbanFantasy - a rarity in a time in which most childrens' books were on the more scentific (but [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture not too far forward]]) side of SpeculativeFiction, historical period pieces, the present day, or a StandardFantasySetting. In the days of [[TrappedInAnotherWorld Isekai]], [[FollowTheLeader copiers]], and more, it seems to be rather stale - but young adult books just ''did not'' have things like this before.

* When the 2017 LiveActionAdaptation of ''Literature/TheWorstWitch'' premièred, a lot of people wrote it off as a blatant rip-off of ''Franchise/HarryPotter''. Turns out that the first book was published in 1974, and the series was one of the most direct inspirations for ''Harry Potter''.

** When it was released, most series intended for young adults were, well, treated as standalones. As a result, a modern viewer might get [[SlowPacedBeginning annoyed at how the premise is rehashed in almost every book]], the [[{{Filler}} amount of adventures that don't mean much]], and [[ArcFatigue how long it takes before the plot moves]]... and [[AsYouKnow many plot advancements get rehashed in later books]].

* ''Literature/TheBadSeed'' chilled readers to the bone back in 1954. Its story of a cute, doll-faced little girl who manipulates her peers and ruins their lives was at the time pretty much unheard of. It was also important in making people realize that parents aren't always to blame for a child's misconduct. With the advent of later novels like 1962's ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'' and 1993's ''Film/TheGoodSon'', modern readers are less likely to be impacted the same way as the 1950's generation was. As psychology has marched on, the novel's implication that "some people are just born evil" has become highly debatable, and—since this was before the second wave of feminism in the 1960's—its depiction of several mothers as doting housewives has not helped its cause.

** Also, in the Holmes short stories Arthur Conan Doyle basically invented the concept of having a series of episodes starring the same {{regular character}}s in self-contained plots. (Before Holmes, magazines usually published serialized novels that required readers to have been following from the beginning). You know, as in the format that was appropriated by [[IndexOfTheWeek just about every single TV show ever.]]

* ''Literature/DonQuixote'' is this to Western literature. The first part of the novel had a RandomEventsPlot, a RomanticPlotTumor and other errors, but the EvenBetterSequel had almost none of the tropes under the BadWritingIndex. Imagine a world where everyone ignored [[LitClassTropes literary techniques.]] If it looks like nothing special today, that is because everything after it followed the techniques that made it successful.

** ''Carrie'' was also one of the first works to thoroughly demonize Christian fanatics, as stories before it, like ''Film/RosemarysBaby'' and ''Literature/TheExorcist'', had glamorized the religion. These days, with various controversies surrounding fundamentalist and Catholic Christianity, it doesn't seem so shocking anymore.

* Literature/NancyDrew can suffer from this a little bit. Post-feminism, it's kind of hard to realize how influential she was (almost every prominent female politician cites her as an inspiration.) She precedes Ellen Ripley and Wonder Woman and has been called one of the first feminists in American Fiction. Not to mention she was headstrong and adventurous, something that wasn't encouraged in children's literature (same goes for ''Literature/TheHardyBoys''.) Nowadays, YouMeddlingKids is a cliché in itself, and the books are seen as nostalgic at best and a little hokey at worst, while her utter perfection would have her written off as a MarySue if she were to appear for the first time today.

** Harry Potter also had a MythArc - while [[RuleOfThree far from the first to do this]], most childrens book series were [[RandomEventsPlot episodic in nature]] with the occasional passage of time, (But [[NotAllowedToGrowUp not too much]]), with a ''few'' having a well defined MythArc. After books like Harry Potter, ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' and ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'', it's hard to belive just how much this meant back in the day.

* ''Literature/Uglies'' might seem like it fits all the familiar YA dystopia cliches to new readers- a love triangle, a teenage girl who has to save the world, a society divided into strict groups and sub-groups, etc. But it was published before the genre became massively popular, and helped create some of the tropes people would later get sick of.

* ''Literature/TheBible'' is widely considered by many as the go-to example of ValuesDissonance that keeps mysteriously proliferating itself, a fantasy novel masquerading as a self-help book or vice-versa. Never mind the fact that between the dated verses is moral philosophy that was well ahead of its time, some of which is taken for granted having now become the status quo, and some of which can still be considered "progressive" today.
** What many people nowadays can't seem to understand is that, even in the early days of the Torah, the Bible was never intended to be ''exclusively'' a "guide to life" as such. Not everything in even the Old Testament is supposed to teach a moral lesson; there is much that is pure history or even poetry.

** They were considered to be [[DoorStopper quite large]] by the standards of the time. A lot of publishers didn't think [[ViewersAreMorons kids in particular would have the attention span to read something above 300 pages]], and that adults would find the [[AudienceAlienatingPremise premise]] to be too juvenile, and would be [[RatedMForMoney ashamed to read a children's book]]. When TheNewTens began, books became much ''much'' thicker, since Harry Potter was one of the first books to teach publishers kids ''did'' in fact have the attention span for these.

** Back when it was published, it was quite a unique read due to its place on the very end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismAndCynicism combined with the LemonyNarrator. These days, many books have utilised that trope along with the UnreliableNarrator that Handler's use of the trope may come off as a bit stale if not flat out patronising.

** Its MythArc, despite being [[MilkmanConspiracy actually simplistic in explanation]], was not fully explained via the main series of books. Even when you read [[AllThereInTheManual supplementary materials]], [[JigsawPlot enough questions were still unanswered]] even when they were done. It made a lot of people ''really'' speculate things - even until the [[Netflix/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents netflix adaptation]], overseen ''by'' Handler. It's hard to take into account just how rare it was for young adult fiction to instill this kind of debate.

* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Discworld/EqualRites'' was originally a subversion of the "witches = bad, wizards = good" trends in fantasy. However, the conventions used have since become so commonplace that today the book just sounds preachy.

* Dennis Wheatley was a British thriller writer who began his career in the 1920s and died in 1977. Many of his otherwise conventional adventure stories contained elements of black magic and Satanism, which (at the time) were considered highly cutting-edge and daring. Many of today's cliches of such fiction were originally invented by him. Since many of his works feature characters astral travelling, it might also be said that modern cyberpunk also stems from his ideas. Today, however, due to the racism, homophobia, sexism, class-consciousness, and Anglocentricity of his ideas, the novels appear quaint to most and offensive to many.

** They received critical and commercial acclaim, in a time in which Young Adult books (at least, what we would call Young Adult books today) were kept on a single shelf in the back of the bookstores - [[SciFiGetto behind the science fiction and fantasy books]]. While it is far from the only Young Adult book to [[OutOfTheGhetto escape the ghetto]], it was among the first. These days many Young Adult works are made into films and often find their ways onto best sellers.