History OnceOriginalNowCommon / Literature

* Creator/WilliamMorris (1834-1896) attempted to revive the ChivalricRomance genre with novels ''Literature/TheWoodBeyondTheWorld'' (1894) and ''Literature/TheWellAtTheWorldsEnd'' (1896), creating "an entirely invented fantasy world" as their setting. These works and his earlier HistoricalFantasy novels influenced writers such as Creator/LordDunsany, Eric Rücker Eddison, James Branch Cabell, Creator/JRRTolkien, and Creator/CSLewis. Problem is that they are among the founding works of MedievalEuropeanFantasy. They had a noticeable influence in the development of HeroicFantasy, HighFantasy, and even the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. There is now nothing innovative about creating an invented world, and his works were considered dated by TheSeventies.
** 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 Creator/LinCarter partly as an attempt to prove that Tolkien did not singlehandedly invent fantasy literature or WorldBuilding or even the StandardFantasySetting.

* Creator/DrSeuss. When he started producing books for children featuring nonsensical word usage and surreal art, he was considered both genius and highly controversial. Nowadays children's books regularly employ RhymesOnADime, [[PerfectlyComulentWord Perfectly Cromulent Words]], and all sorts of different art styles, making Seuss's books blend right in.

** To a lesser extent, this happened to Dracula's precursor, ''Literature/VarneyTheVampire'', which invented the idea of a vampire with fangs, puncture marks on the throat, and [[AntiVillain the sympathetic vampire]]. However, despite its influence it was never a particularly good book to begin with.

* ''Literature/DonQuixote'' is this to Western literature. The first part of the novel had a RandomEventsPlot, a RomanticPlotTumor, and other common tropes, but the EvenBetterSequel had almost none of the tropes under the WritingPitfallIndex. 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.
* Creator/DrSeuss. When he started producing books for children featuring nonsensical word usage and surreal art, he was considered both genius and highly controversial.

** To a lesser extent, this happened to Dracula's precursor, ''Literature/VarneyTheVampire'', which invented the idea of a vampire with fangs, puncture marks on the throat, and [[AntiVillain the sympathetic vampire.]] However, despite its influence it was never a particularly good book to begin with.

* The ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' books. People new to it (and in particular the TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms novels) and who scoff at [[Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt Drizzt]] being the emo badass rebel from an evil society don't realize just what hot shit those books were in the early '90s - and that they inspired a lot of the clichés they deride the books for using. Author Creator/RASalvatore has even had readers come up to him at conventions to say "A good dual-wielding Drow ranger? How cliche!"
** ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' suffers from this trope as well. It was the first series of books set in a gaming world to achieve popular acclaim. Today, uninformed reviews exist of the original Chronicles that tear them apart on the premise that it's such a cheesy/overdone/cliched setting and cast of characters.
* Creator/ErnestHemingway. Read any other novel or watch a movie on wartime experiences before reading ''Literature/AFarewellToArms''. It'll end up looking like just another run-of-the-mill war story.
* It's probably fair to say that these days most people approaching Fritz Leiber's ''Literature/FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser'' for the first time will be quite familiar with ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' or related media like ''VideoGame/BaldursGate''. Viewed from this perspective the stories and especially the StandardFantasySetting can often seem like a writeup of someone's D&D sessions. The short story format exacerbates this because each time our heroes are dealing with a new job or quest. Except, of course, that most of the stories were written decades before the first roleplaying games, and it was these stories perhaps more than any other source which informed the kind of archetypes on which D&D leans so heavily.
* The ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' series made {{Gamebooks}} well-known among the general audience and brought the peak of the gamebook craze during the 1980s and 1990s. Nowadays, while still remembered fondly by those who lived these glory days, some books are critisized for their weak characterization and weak story, as well as their FakeDifficulty. It's especially true in the case of ''Literature/TheWarlockOfFiretopMountain'', the very first book of the series. It *is* the book that started it all, but compared to later installments, its gameplay is standard and its story is non-existant.
* ''Literature/TheFlameAndTheFlower''. A romance novel with explicit sex and a ReformedRake falling for TheIngenue? Isn't that basically all of them? Well...for those not in the know, ''The Flame and the Flower'' all but invented the modern bodice ripper. Prior to this book's publication in 1972 romance novels tended to be very chaste, while this one was significantly HotterAndSexier. Its popularity led to it having a huge influence on the genre, with many subsequent romance novels taking inspiration from this one. It's worth noting that parts of the plot haven't aged particularly well (mostly the issues surrounding consent in the romance, which unfortunately got imitated a lot as well) but both better and worse it was hugely influential to the romance genre.
* ''Literature/TheGreatGodPan'' (1894) was a prototype CosmicHorrorStory, notable for "the cumulative suspense and ultimate horror with which every paragraph abounds". It was cited as a major influence by Creator/HPLovecraft, and (more recently) Creator/StephenKing. But part of the suspense is killed for the modern reader, who knows what to expect from the genre.

** 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 - [[SciFiGhetto 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.
** 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]], whereas 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.
** Its setting was an UrbanFantasy - a rarity in a time in which most childrens' books were on the more scientific (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.
*** UrbanFantasy itself was somewhat obscure, and unless you were talking about ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', was mostly buried ''deep'' on the shelves [[SciFiGhetto of Science Fiction and Fantasy books]].

* Creator/JDSalinger's ''Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye'' started an {{Angst}} revolution in literature. Angst has been a part of literature ever since ''Literature/WutheringHeights'', ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', and even ''Literature/TheIliad'' ([[AchillesInHisTent Achilles sitting in his tent and sulking]], anyone?), but Salinger presented the topics in such eloquent (and contemporary) language that it struck readers as being more legitimately emotional compared to the dated and hard to read. As a result, those who have read similar-style books before reading Salinger's book often write ''Catcher'' off as okay at best, and a poor man's Creator/ChuckPalahniuk at worst. The use of a casual, first-person writing style also contributes heavily to making it seem dated, as does the heavy use of slang and turns of phrase that are alien to a modern reader. On top of that, almost everybody admonishes Holden not to swear when the worst thing he says is...[[GoshDangItToHeck "goddamn".]] This leads to modern readers, who hear words like [[ClusterFBomb the f-word]] and [[ObligatorySwearing shit]] on a daily basis, seeing Holden as more of a RuleAbidingRebel when he was, for his time, quite a potty-mouth.

** You could argue that not only was Salinger groundbreaking, he was also way, ''way'' ahead of his time. The sarcastic first-person narrator he pioneered has become so popular in fictional media involving teenagers that people tend to forget it only really took off as recently as TheNineties. Creator/JohnHughes could use it in ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'' three-and-a-half decades after ''Catcher in the Rye'' was published and still make it seem original. Even ''Film/{{Clueless}}'', which was nearly a decade after ''that'', seemed fresh at the time.
* ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'': Touma's [[GameBreaker absurdly broken power,]] [[UnderdogsNeverLose seeming inability to lose]] and [[KirkSummation constant moral preaching]] will get on your nerves quickly, but he was one of the {{Trope Codifier}}s for the StockLightNovelHero and in fact, in the modern day where {{Showy Invincible Hero}}es are the norm for light novels, looks downright {{subver|tedTrope}}sive. Both his incredible power and his incredible goodness are given concrete, in-universe explanations and are noticed, pointed out, and played with, which is far more than most light novel heroes in this day and age get.
* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' nowadays seems like a lot of other books you have probably read in your life: Kids discovering a mysterious pathway to another world, finding their arrival to this strange new world to be predicted in prophecy, some of the residents are pleased to find them, while others want them all dead, and soon everyone embarks on a large adventure to save the world... Many ''many'' fantasy novels for kids and even adults have these elements. There is even [[{{Isekai}} an entire genre of Japanese media]] dedicated to these tropes. And as for Biblical references; it's hard to find a modern work that ''doesn't'' [[FauxSymbolism draw from]] Literature/TheBible.
* ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'' was a huge ''huge'' influence on fantasy, arguably contributing just as much as ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. While most people are [[AdaptationDisplacement unfamilair with the stuff written by Robert E Howard]] and are more familiar with [[Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982 the movie]], Howard's works can seem flat out generic or boring by a modern standard due to its slew of imitators and successors.
* ''Literature/AConnecticutYankeeInKingArthursCourt'' (1889) has fallen victim to it. It was one of the earliest TimeTravel novels, and the protagonist's efforts to introduce "modern" technology and values in TheMiddleAges was groundbreaking on its own. However this idea was followed in (among others) ''Literature/LestDarknessFall'' (1941), which was itself influential in the AlternateHistory genre, ''Literature/ConradStargard'' series, the ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series, and ''Literature/{{Timeline}}''. While The Man Who Came Early (1956) by Creator/PoulAnderson served as an influential {{Deconstruction}} of the concept, nowadays it's hard to realize what was unique in the original novel.
* ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'' is often hailed as one of, if not ''the'', greatest revenge stories of all time and remains a classic to this day. However, with the number of stories that have popped up to [[FollowTheLeader ape the plot of the novel]] since then (including many a poorly-written RevengeFic), it can be hard to see what makes this story so great.
* Creator/DashiellHammett and Creator/RaymondChandler. Their hard-boiled detective fiction certainly qualifies.
** The same goes for the inventors of "classic" detective fiction, Creator/ArthurDoyle and Creator/AgathaChristie in particular. Many of the stories and novels by both are stuffed with clichés and twists that a modern-day reader has seen a bit too often - but they invented them.
** While the works of Conan Doyle may seem a bit dated today, many of the mystery authors that succeeded him, and were hugely successful at the time, are almost unreadable today - their mysteries may have seemed innovative at the time, but have been imitated and done better so many times that they've lost their attraction. And, unlike the authors who remain popular today, such as Creator/AgathaChristie, their writing wasn't good enough to survive when their plots ceased to be novelties.
** Creator/IsaacAsimov, when he set out to write some mysteries of his own, soon reached the conclusion that Christie had already used up nearly every twist in existence.

* Creator/DennisWheatley 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.

* ''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 WritingPitfallIndex. 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.
* Creator/DrSeuss. When he started producing books for children featuring nonsensical word usage and surreal art, he was considered both genius and highly controversial, which tends to go right over the heads of modern readers.

** When it was released, most series intended for young adults were treated as standalones. As a result, a modern viewer might get annoyed at how [[SlowPacedBeginning the premise is rehashed in almost every book]], the [[{{Filler}} abundance of adventures that don't mean much]], [[ArcFatigue how long it takes before the plot moves forward]], and [[AsYouKnow how many plot advancements get rehashed in later books]]. These can come off as tedious for modern readers who are used to the concept of {{Continuity}} in book series, but they were necessary in a time when [[ContinuityLockout readers weren't expecting to ''need'' to have read previous books in order to understand the plot]].
** It was released in the height of [[NinetiesAntiHero 90s edge]] and [[QuirkyWork 90s weirdness]]. A lot of was made to be shocking and extreme back then. Not much attention was made for worldbuilding, resulting in a lot of PlanetOfHats.
* ''Literature/AreYouThereGodItsMeMargaret'' is seen as a pretty tame book by today's standards, but its frank discussion of puberty and religious issues were controversial in the '70s when it was written and resulted in it being banned from many schools.

* While Creator/IsaacAsimov is still widely respected for his massive influence on the science-fiction genre, his works can seem pretty dated and hokey today--largely because almost ''every'' subsequent sci-fi author has made use of the speculative concepts that he helped to popularize. Strangely enough, though, easily the most groundbreaking aspect of his work is also the one that can seem the least remarkable to modern readers: most of his sci-fi works also incorporate elements of ''other'' genres (e.g. mystery, comedy, political thriller, romance, etc.); Asimov was one of the first sci-fi authors to argue that sci-fi didn't necessarily need to be a genre unto itself, but could be combined with elements of other genres in order to appeal to a more broad audience. When ''Literature/TheCavesOfSteel'' was first published in 1953, the very idea of a {{whodunnit}} murder mystery set in '''the future''' was practically unheard-of.
* ''Literature/TheBadSeed'' chilled readers to the bone back in 1954. Its story of [[EnfantTerrible 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 1950s 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 1960s—its depiction of several mothers as doting housewives has not helped its cause.
* Creator/BeverlyCleary's ''Literature/HenryHuggins'' and ''Literature/RamonaQuimby'' series were quite unusual in several ways:
** The Ramona series was a spinoff of the Henry Huggins series, being somewhat of a perspective flip. Both series took place in the same neighbourhood and followed the same characters, just that the perspective flipped from Henry and his family to Ramona and her family. One didn't need to read the other books - but it sure helped since they would be familiar with the characters. The series were able to stand on their own. These days, a SpinOff novel series isn't really that novel, it can be hard to appreciate just how interesting this was.
** The books themselves were intended to be humorous and depict ParentsAsPeople. Despite some of the wacky hijinks that ensued, the ''Ramona'' series actually had the characters talk about issues young children would face - such as needing to take responsibilities for housework themselves, moving to a new house, starting at a new school, parents losing jobs, and facing a reality of simply getting older and how things will change. A modern reader who grew up on things such as ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid'' might see these books as almost unrealistically tame.

* When ''Literature/TheBelgariad'' first came out, Ce'Nedra, the "spoiled brat" who becomes "a little tiger when the chips are down" (to quote the author himself) served as a SpiritualAntithesis to the damsel types that previously littered the high fantasy genre. In the years since, with the advent of high-fantasy works like ''Literature/CircleOfMagic'' and ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', which offer a variety of major female characters in various roles, Ce'Nedra's distance from the kind of damsel characters she was intended to parody has shrunk.
* ''Literature/{{Carrie}}'', a 1974 novel by Creator/StephenKing, is this for the way it depicts religion. For years, many horror stories centered around religion, like ''Film/RosemarysBaby'' and ''Literature/TheExorcist'', portrayed God-worshippers as the good guys who fight back heroically against the forces of the Devil. In the case of ''Carrie'', the religious individual, the title character's mother, is a ''villain'', abusive, delusional, and downright insane. These days, with the growing acceptance of atheism and controversies regarding religious extremism, the character's arc almost seems like an annoying, parodic tract.

* Creator/JDSalinger's ''Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye'' started an {{Angst}} revolution in literature that it has yet to come out of. Angst has been a part of literature ever since ''Literature/WutheringHeights'', ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', and even ''Literature/TheIliad'' ([[AchillesInHisTent Achilles sitting in his tent and sulking]], anyone?), but there, it was presented in such eloquent language that it seemed more legitimately emotional. As a result, those who have read similar-style books before reading Salinger's book often write ''Catcher'' off as okay at best, and a poor man's Creator/ChuckPalahniuk at worst. The use of a casual, first-person writing style also contributes heavily to making it dated. The use of slang and turns of phrase that are alien to newcomers makes it strange to a modern reader. On top of that, almost everybody admonishes Holden not to swear when the worst thing he says is... [[GoshDangItToHeck "goddamn".]] This leads to modern readers, who hear words like [[ClusterFBomb "fuck"]] and [[PrecisionFStrike "shit"]] on a daily basis, seeing Holden as more of a RuleAbidingRebel when he was, for his time, quite a potty-mouth.
** This is parodied in the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode [[http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s14e02-the-tale-of-scrotie-mcboogerballs "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs"]], where the kids are required to read ''The Catcher in the Rye'' for school and are disappointed by how tame they find it to be after hearing so much about how controversial it was. Cartman even says that the book was a conspiracy to get kids to read by making it seem a lot edgier than it was.

* Indicating this trope is at least as [[OlderThanFeudalism old as feudalism]], within the first few lines of Chaucer's Literature/TheCanterburyTales are references to sweet April showers and to a character whose beard is as white as the daisy. Six centuries ago, these were neologisms coined by Chaucer and not clichés.
* LightNovels set in a WizardingSchool (and usually the {{harem|Genre}} hijinks they feature) were a major critical whipping boy during the first half of TheNewTens (and [[ClicheStorm not]] [[FollowTheLeader without reason]]). Because of such a major backlash, series like ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'' and ''Literature/InfiniteStratos'' look awfully tired today, when they were some of the first to even establish that genre as a cash cow in the first place. ''Index'', while it does love its harem shenanigans, is an action series first and foremost and largely drops the {{Fanservice}} when it's time to get serious, and its "school" part is largely window dressing as most non-{{Filler}} arcs ''don't even take place in school''. ''IS'', on the other hand, is a largely light-hearted {{ecchi}} harem, with the titular {{Mecha}} really only used as window dressing, therefore all the {{Fanservice}} fits with its tone, and doesn't seem out of place. However, both, due to the CriticalBacklash, have fallen victim to the same "hate on principle" as their predecessors, even though they were the ones that all the others copied in the first place.
** ''Literature/{{Maburaho}}'' is even worse in that regard; any reader today would see the tired WizardingSchool setting, the bland protagonist, and the harem of girls competing for his attention for [[StrangledByTheRedString rather flimsy reasons]], assume it to be a product of the early [=2010s=] and tune out quickly, but the novels began publication in 2000 and the anime adaptation first aired in 2003, well before light novels of this genre even became popular. It also has a host of character driven {{Story Arc}}s, which is more than can be said of those that follow it.
* ''Literature/AmadisOfGaul'' is the most important knight-errant ChivalricRomance of all time, but today it seems dated, to the point that it has been all but forgotten and replaced in importance by its extremely angry {{Deconstruction}}, ''Literature/DonQuixote''. Note, however, that ''Amadis of Gaul'' is saved from the fire for its merits in the chapter where the library of Don Quixote is being burned, indicating that Cervantes himself was aware of this trope to some degree.

** 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]], [[ArcFatigue how long it takes before the plot moves]]... and [[AsYouKnow many plot advancements get rehashed in later books]].
** It was released in the height of [[NinetiesAntiHero 90s edge]] and [[QuirkyWork 90s weirdness]]. A lot of stuff was made to be shocking and extreme back then. Not much attention was made for worldbuilding, resulting in a lot of PlanetOfHats.

** The Ramona series was a spinoff of the Henry Huggins series, being somewhat of a perspective flip. Both series took place in the same neighbourhood and followed the same characters, just that the perspective flipped from Henry and his family to Ramona and her family. One didn't need to read the other books - but it sure helped since they would be familiar with the characters. The series were able to stand on their own. These days, a SpinOff novel series isn't really that [[JustForPun novel]], it can be hard to appreciate just how interesting this was.

** It was released in the height of [[NinetiesAntiHero 90s edge]] and [[WidgetSeries 90s weirdness]]. A lot of stuff was made to be shocking and extreme back then. Not much attention was made for worldbuilding, resulting in a lot of PlanetOfHats.

* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' nowadays seems ''just'' like a lot of other books you have probably read several times by now. Kids discovering a mysterious pathway to another world, finding their arrival to this strange new world to be predicted in prophecy, some of the residents are pleased to find them, while others want them all dead, and soon everyone embarks on a large adventure to save the world... Yeah, it doesn't sound too original today. And as for Biblical references? It's hard to find work that ''doesn't'' [[FauxSymbolism draw from]] Literature/TheBible.

* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' nowadays seems ''just'' like a lot of other books you have probably read several times by now. Kids discovering a mysterious pathway to another world, finding their arrival to this strange new world to be predicted in prophecy, some of the residents are pleased to find them, while others want them all dead, and soon everyone embarks on a large adventure to save the world... Yeah, it doesn't sound too original today. Oh, and as for Biblical references? ''*Yawn* ''. Name something today that ''doesn't'' [[FauxSymbolism draw from]] Literature/TheBible heavily.

** The same goes for the inventors of "classic" detective fiction, Creator/ArthurConanDoyle and Creator/AgathaChristie in particular. Many of the stories and novels by both are stuffed with clichés and twists that a modern-day reader has seen a bit too often - but they invented them.

* For about ten years or so, Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' was considered the ultimate in subversive epic fantasy. Little to no magic, no elves or dwarves (at least, not fantasy dwarves), profanity, uncensored sex, graphic violence and no PlotArmor for ''anyone''. But it was also a heavily character-driven piece with genuine heart, even if that wasn't always recognized. By the 2010s, it had spawned so many imitators who mainly copied its surface qualities (extreme violence and death, explicit sex) that it no longer feels like anything really different, and is primarily thought of as "that series where everybody dies" due to its at-the-time-unheard-of tendency to kill characters that would usually survive to the end of similar books.

* The ''Literature/{{Shannara}}'' franchise, particularly ''Literature/TheSwordOfShannara''. People today tend to look at it and see a blatant rip-off of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. At the time, people wouldn't have, due to Brooks' other innovations, including Elves that were human and known to be fallible, a {{Mentor}} who was a whopping example of GoodIsNotNice, the aversion of AlwaysChaoticEvil, the AfterTheEnd setting and of course, the twist ending ([[spoiler:The Sword convinces the BigBad of his DeadAllAlong status]]). The series had the first high fantasy novel (''Sword'') not written for children to be a commercial success in its own time (that's right; ''The Lord of the Rings'' was not a commercial success until many years after it was published), and ''Elfstones'' and ''Wishsong'' were numbers two and three, respectively; all three spent weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. This was largely what convinced publishers that fantasy could be a commercially viable genre separate from sci-fi, causing an explosion in the publication of fantasy. Nowadays this is forgotten and the novel's innovations are so common that modern readers tend only to notice the flaws and the similarities to ''Lord of the Rings'', instead of the differences.
** When ''Shannara'' first appeared in '77, fantasy fans ''did'' see it as a LOTR ripoff. It came in for a lot of derision by the SF&F crowd. Its success came from younger and more casual readers, disappointed because ''The Silmarillion'' (also published in '77) wasn't like the earlier Middle-earth books. These readers picked up on ''Shannara'' because at the time there wasn't much else in the genre.[[note]]The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballantine_Adult_Fantasy_series Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series]] reprinted classic works of high fantasy (see note on William Morris, below) but most were complex narratives in old-style English, which may have been too difficult for casual readers.[[/note]]

* Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': This book popularized most of the cliches found in fantasy today, but modern readers may well find it unspeakably boring, purely because everything in it has since been subverted, inverted, parodied, and otherwise done to death. Aside from that though, it also has lots of UnbuiltTrope which are actually not like what non-readers think the book contains.
** He gave the first definitions of the stock races as mostly used today. Elves existed in many different forms in different mythologies, from little wingy [[Creator/{{Disney}} tinkerbells]] to modern fantasy '''dwarves'''; now, everyone thinks "pointy ears", archery, and intelligent beauty. Orcs were a new name, and possibly didn't exist in that form in folklore except in general as ''orcneas'', ogres. The elf-dwarf hostilities began in Tolkien. Dwarfs as bearded miners, while that did exist before, was codified. "Dwarves" was also a Tolkienism, as was the adjectival form "elven"; before Tolkien, the most accepted plural for "dwarf" was "dwarfs", and the adjectival form of "elf" was "elfin".

* ''Literature/StrangerInAStrangeLand'' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein features a Jesus-like human from Mars who can perform telekinesis, telepathy, and miraculous healing simply by meditating. He spends most of the novel trying to "understand Earth behavior" and ends up bringing his followers sexual liberation. Most people nowadays tend to forget that Heinlein wrote the novel in ''the '50s'' but that it was only deemed publishable in 1961, when the hippie movement was just getting started. It ended up having a huge influence on the counterculture mentality of the '60s and '70s, predating ''Jonathan Livingston Seagull'' by over a decade. Many attitudes in modern New Age philosophy are taken directly from Heinlein's work, often disguised as ancient Eastern wisdom.

* Creator/WilliamMorris (1834-1896) attempted to revive the ChivalricRomance genre with novels ''The Wood Beyond the World'' (1894) and ''The Well at the World's End'' (1896), creating "an entirely invented fantasy world" as their setting. These works and his earlier HistoricalFantasy novels influenced writers such as Creator/LordDunsany, Eric Rücker Eddison, James Branch Cabell, Creator/JRRTolkien, and Creator/CSLewis. Problem is that they are among the founding works of MedievalEuropeanFantasy. They had a noticeable influence in the development of HeroicFantasy, HighFantasy, and even the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. There is now nothing innovative about creating an invented world, and his works were considered dated by TheSeventies.

* Indicating this trope is at least as [[OlderThanFeudalism old as feudalism]], within the first few lines of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are references to sweet April showers and to a character whose beard is as white as the daisy. Six centuries ago, these were neologisms coined by Chaucer and not clichés.

* ''Amadis of Gaul'' is the most important knight-errant ChivalricRomance of all time, but today it seems dated, to the point that it has been all but forgotten and replaced in importance by its extremely angry {{Deconstruction}}, ''Literature/DonQuixote''. Note, however, that ''Amadis of Gaul'' is saved from the fire for its merits in the chapter where the library of Don Quixote is being burned, indicating that Cervantes himself was aware of this trope to some degree.

* ''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 CondemnedByHistory, 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.
* ''Paul Clifford'', Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton's fifth novel, was an immense commercial success when first published. Today, it is remembered only as the origin of the notorious "ItWasADarkAndStormyNight".

* ''Literature/AConnecticutYankeeInKingArthursCourt'' (1889) has fallen victim to it. It was one of the earliest TimeTravel novels, and the protagonist's efforts to introduce "modern" technology and values in TheMiddleAges was groundbreaking on its own. However this idea was followed in (among others) ''Lest Darkness Fall'' (1941), which was itself influential in the AlternateHistory genre, ''The Cross Time Engineer'' series, the ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series, and ''Literature/{{Timeline}}''. While The Man Who Came Early (1956) by Creator/PoulAnderson served as an influential {{Deconstruction}} of the concept, nowadays it's hard to realize what was unique in the original novel.