Sunday Meskin Measures.
An interesting sidestep, I think. I coupl eof years ago I wrote an article for a Dutch magaine about the origins of the worldbuilding concepts that seem so normal now. Thesedays, when you have a comic or a television or a movie or even a game platform, the essential elements of the series can be remixed in several ways to show other aspects of that world. Sidestories about incidental characters, ancestors, mirror worlds, sequels, prequels and behind the scenequels... everyonde does it. Even novels are exploited that way. But it didn't start all that long ago. I think. Where did the idea of exploring the world of a series start? The very first comic strips often didn't have a wold that was larger than the one joke they repeated every week or day.
Writing the article I tried to follow back the line of sries doing this. Buffy the Vampire Slayer seemd a good example of this. Writer Josh Whedon has said he was inspired in doing Buffy by the X-man written by Chris Claremont. Claremont obviously took some of his worldbuilding efforts from Star Trek. The orginal Star Trek's Mirrorworld episode was a very early example and very influential. Before that, there was the crosspolination that Stan Lee did for the early Marvel books, although he used crossing characters more than sjowing earlier relatives or mirror worlds.
All in all, there probably is a large element of creative people having the same kind of idea at different times. Still, some ideas are so lare that once they are out there in the world, they sort of replicate themselves. All in al, I would be curious to know if there are earlier examples of this creating a world behind the world.
Well, in this story we have a very early ezmple. Not an influential one, because I have never seen it mentioned or reprinted. But still a signficant one and at the very least an idea that would have seemed a lot more original back then than it would these days.
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