Does anyone know where the phrase "trouble in paradise" comes from? The earliest usage I can find of the phrase is the title of the 1923 movie Trouble in Paradise, based on a Hungarian play called The Honest Finder.
2 Answers
Trouble in paradise: ( from Wiktictionary)
- (idiomatic) An unexpected problem in a supposedly positive situation, especially in a marital or romantic relationship.
An early instance of this expression can be found in The Aberdeen Evening Express , Aberdeenshire, Scotland dated Thursday 05 November 1885.
- “... Job says, understanding is dimmed with words, would permitted to make perpetual trouble in Paradise. Kay, he never dared dream thai ... ”
Source: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
The phrase appears at least as early as 1895 in Around the Tea-table by Thomas De Witt Talmag
He does not like women - thinks they are of no use in the world, save to set the tea a-drawing. Says there was no trouble in Paradise till a female came there, and that ever since Adam lost the rib woman has been to man a bad pain in the side.
When it became a set phrase is not clear.
