Reading Classics, Chronologically Through the Ages discussion

Oedipus the King was only 1 of 123 plays written by Sophocles--who was Aeschylus' younger contemporary--and is considered to be part of the saga of Thebes, otherwise known as "The Three Theban Plays":
Antigone (442 BCE),
Oedipus The King, (427 BCE)
Oedipus at Colonus (produced in 401 BCE, after Sophocles' death in 406 BCE).

But I was fascinated to find that they are not actually a trilogy (which explains my confusion when some books would place them in the order listed above, and others would place Antigone last). The order I listed above is the order in which they were written (as you can see by the accompanying dates). Even though they are all part of the "same" story, Antigone should go last if we were to read sequentially in terms of the story itself. But not only did Sophocles write them several years apart, each individual story sometimes contradicts the others.

Although Greece had many festivals, the Dionysia festival in Athens was the most notable. This is where all of these plays were performed in front of 14-15,000 spectators, and Sophocles won first place eighteen times.

(I pulled this information from my Penguin Classics Edition's introduction, Greece and the Theater.)

Wow. I knew the story, but it still had a visceral effect on me: my heart broke, I shuddered, I cringed... once the messenger from Corinth came, I was on the edge of my seat to see how it would all be brought to light.