"EVERYONE tells the story of Cinderella"
Penguin Books in its 'Folklore Library' series published a whole volume of Cinderella stories, 'The Cinderella Story' by Neil Phillip, which include versions from all over the world.
The author gives the earliest written form as having been a Chinese one found by an official, Tuan Ch'eng-shih, who lived from about AD 800 to 863.
His source was 'Li Shih-yuan, "who has been in service for my family for a long while"
William Bell's 'Shakespeare's Puck and his Folkslore' (William Bell 1852) mentions that character as turning up in ancient Greece and as far back as Anglo Saxon times.
Jim Carroll