The Three Princes of Serendip as in the quality of the observation." Poe's M. Dupin stories mark the start of the modern detective fiction genre. Émile Gaboriau, and Arthur Conan Doyle were perhaps also influenced by Zadig. The Three Princes of Serendip The Three Princes of Serendip is the English version of the story "Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo" published by Michele Tramezzino in Venice in 1557. Tramezzino claimed to have heard the story from one , who had translated the Persian fairy tale into Italian, adapting Book One of Amir Khusrau's "Hasht-Bihisht" of 1302. The story first came to English
The Three Princes of Serendip source of the word serendipity, coined by Horace Walpole because of his recollection of the part of the "silly fairy tale" in which the three princes by "accidents and sagacity" discern the nature of a lost camel. In a separate line of descent, the story was used by Voltaire in his 1747 "Zadig", and through this contributed to both the evolution of detective fiction and the self-understanding of scientific method. "In ancient times there existed in the country of Serendippo, in the Far East, a great and powerful king by the name of Giaffer. He had three sons who were