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When was the circle story technique first used? By circle story technique I mean a story that reveals the end at the beginning of the story and then jumps backwards to tell the story from its start.

I've seen this much more in movies and TV shows. But I doubt movies and TV were the first to do this, so I'm asking about books or even pre-novels, such as The Canterbury Tales. I'm not the best at coming up with examples, but in the first scene or chapter, in a circle story, the climatic moment (i.e. when the murder occurs) is given to the reader/viewer. Then we back up and find out what lead to this climax. (i.e. why did the murder occur, what lead to that happening) The main flow of the story is the climax first, then back up and work your way back to the climax, showing how/why it happened.

What book or story was the first to use this technique?

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    It would help if you could update the question to include some examples of works fitting the pattern.
    – Gareth Rees
    Commented Jan 10 at 23:44
  • Some examples of circle stories that come to my mind are the books in Daniel Abraham's Kithamar trilogy. The books in the trilogy take place simultaneously. The two which have been published so far start with a chapter describing the crowning of the new ruler of Kithamar, and then proceed with a (chronologically linear) narrative of events during the past year that led to the previous ruler's death. There might be a chapter or two that happen after the beginning teaser, but these chapters essentially tie up loose ends.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Jan 11 at 14:58
  • Perhaps The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) would count as an example?
    – Gareth Rees
    Commented Jan 12 at 10:17
  • Would Romeo and Juliet count? (c. 1595)
    – Skooba
    Commented Jan 12 at 15:06
  • @Skooba Or, similarly, epics such as the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid, which summarize a fair bit of their plot right at the beginning (maybe not the entire plot, though).
    – DLosc
    Commented Jan 15 at 17:23

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