Cinderella

Biography

Cinderella (or The Little Glass Slipper) is a folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world. The protagonist is a young girl living in unfortunate circumstances who is suddenly blessed with remarkable fortune, ultimately ascending to the throne through marriage. The earliest known version of the Cinderella story is usually considered to be the Greek story of Rhodopis, as described by the scholar Strabo sometime between 7 BC and 23 AD, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt. The first literary Western version of the story was the Italian tale La Gatta Cenerentola, published by Giambattista Basile in his Pentamerone in 1634. The version that is now most widely known in the English-speaking world was published in French by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Histories, or Tales of Past Time) in 1697 as Cendrillon, and was anglicized as Cinderella. Another version was later published in German as Aschenputtel by the Brothers Grimm in their folk tale collection Grimms' Fairy Tales in 1812. Although the story's title and main character's name change in different languages, in English-language folklore Cinderella is an archetypal name. The word Cinderella has, by analogy, come to mean someone whose attributes are unrecognized, or someone who unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect. In the world of sports, "a Cinderella" is used for an underrated team or club winning over stronger and more favoured competitors. The still-popular story of Cinderella continues to influence popular culture internationally, lending plot elements, allusions, and tropes to a wide variety of media.

Bio from Wikipedia