The first written fictional work we know of is the Epic of Gilgamesh from ~4000years ago. Considering that many societies, including those with writing also had strong oral traditions and these likely included fictional stories. A lot of these stories include fictional settings, such as heaven or hell/netherworld. Thus the first fictional universes can be considered as prior to writing.
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The Illiad and The Odyssey maybe? And you can add The Aeneid to it as well. It depends a bit on how you define a fictional universe, but this is a shared universe with 3 protagonists : Achilles, Odysseus and Aeneas.
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Do the ancient epics really count? Many were not viewed as fiction in their time.
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Have you ever read the Illiad or the Odyssey?
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Sherlock Holmes had a developed canon.
I'd expect some pantheon of gods would fit the definition.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a collection of stories with likely different authors. That might fit what you're looking for. As far as I know it's the oldest written stories we have, some 5000 years old. And it's about a superhero believe it or not.
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