History ParentalAbandonment / Literature

* ''Literature/LoveLettersToTheDead'': Laurel's mother left and moved to California after the death of her sister May, with Laurel's only contact with her being over the phone. There's also Hannah's parents, who died in a car accident years prior, leaving Hannah to live with her grandparents.

** In all three of the ''Literature/{{Warlock}}'' books, the main character is without parents. The death of Charis' father was the triggering of the opening events in ''Literature/OrdealInOtherwhere''.

* ''Literature/TheDiademSaga'': In ''Diadem from the Stars'', we learn that Aleytys's birth mother Shareem escaped the planet Jaydugar when Aleytys was too young to remember her, not wanting the reminder of briefly being Azdar's SexSlave but still hoping a curse she (pretended to) pronounce upon the house of Azdar if they harmed her would be enough to protect her. The message Shareem left for Aleytys says openly that if Aleytys is anything like her father, then Shareem doesn't ''want'' to meet her. [[spoiler:Aleytys in turn ultimately returns to Jaydugar in ''Maeve'' to visit her son Sharl for the last time (after he was kidnapped from her by a disgruntled traveling companion in ''Lamarchos''). She leaves him with his father Vajd and his new wife because the life she's chosen for herself is too dangerous for a child.]]

* In ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', the Pevensie childrens' parents rarely appear. Justified in that their father was drafted and their mother sent them to the countryside to escape the German bombing of London

* Creator/IanFleming's Franchise/JamesBond lost his parents (Andrew Bond of Scotland and Monique Delacroix Bond of the Canton de Vaud, Switzerland) in a climbing accident in the French Alps when he was eleven.

* ''[[Literature/InheritanceCycle Eragon]]'' by Christopher Paolini. But then, if ''Franchise/StarWars'' appears on any page, odds are good that the ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'' will, too.

* Standard practice for Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs's Green Martians. The women do not know whether their eggs were selected for hatching, and couldn't identify the fathers. Literature/JohnCarterOfMars attributes much of their harshness to this; one Green Martian raised by her mother, and knowing her father, is far more generous and gentle than her fellows.

* Every Creator/AnthonyHorowitz series uses it, including ''Literature/AlexRider'', the ''Diamond Brothers'' series, the first 4 Gatekeepers in the ''Power of Five'' series, and the protagonist of ''The Devil and his Boy''.

* In Sarah Kuhn's ''Heroine Complex'', Evie Tanaka's mother died of cancer when she was around seventeen and her father wandered off seeking peace two months later, leaving her to [[PromotionToParent raise her twelve year old sister]] and finish high school on her own.

* ''Literature/TheCampHalfBloodSeries'': Demigods in the series always have godly parents who are missing in their lives, because gods are not supposed to have extensive contact with mortals beyond conception. This frequently drives their mortal partners into dysfunction. In fact, Percy Jackson is one of the few, if not the ''only'', demigod whose mortal parent is not dead, abusive, or distant.
** Annabeth Chase, Thalia Grace, and Luke Castellan all ran away from home when they were children. In Annabeth's case, the problem was her not being able to accept her stepmother. On the other hand, Thalia and Luke had legitimate reasons to leave their homes. Thalia's mother, as revealed in ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'', was a drunken alcoholic who mistreated her children. Thalia left her after she presented her brother, Jason, to Hera, and never contacted her again until she died of a car accident. Meanwhile, Luke's mother was driven insane by the Oracle at Delphi, meaning she was in no condition to support any family.

** Meg [=McCaffrey=]'s father was killed by Nero, who then adopted Meg and gaslit her into believing that she is her father.

* In ''Literature/TheRedTent'', it is mentioned that babies born with some kind of defect would simply be left outside to die of exposure and starvation. (TruthInTelevision for much of the Ancient World, especially around the Mediterranean.) When Leah was born with MismatchedEyes, the midwife called for this to happen, thinking that Leah was a demon child, but [[DefiedTrope her mother Adah would have none of that]].

* "Literature/FairestOfAll": Mahon's parents, believing him to be a faerie changeling, leave him in the forest and tell him to never come back. He sits and stares at the leaves until he's discovered by an actual faerie queen, who takes him as her slave.

** Although Rowling kills parents and parental figures with merry abandon throughout the series, she also throws us an inversion: In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', [[spoiler:to protect her muggle parents, Hermione ''makes'' them abandon her by judicious use of memory charms to change their identities and make them forget they ever had a daughter. The emotional toll on her is quite intense]].
*** Rowling not only admits to purposely orphaning Harry right off the bat, ("Harry had to be an orphan -- so that he's a free agent, with no fear of letting down his parents, disappointing them....") but she even cites the Potters' brutal murder happening first thing in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'' to rebuff the argument by angry parents that her books betray their audience by getting progressively scarier.

* In ''Literature/MoDaoZuShi'', it's only easier to list the characters in the main cast with dead parents because it's all of them.

* ''Literature/BazilBroketail'': Relkin is an orphan, along with most other dragonboys. His mother had died early on, and he isn't clear on who his father was (probably a soldier from the Argonath legions).

** ''[[Literature/{{REEL}} REAL]]'' has Neru's workaholic mother Abigail, whose career as a doctor clearly takes priority over her son, and Fasia's parents, who were [[LonersAreFreaks such internet addicts]] that they only ever logged out of TheMetaverse to eat and get some sleep, completely neglecting their daughter. Eventually Fasia's grandfather gave up on them and [[PromotedToParent took Fasia in.]]

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': It's not that the Solo kids are abandoned by their parents; it's just that it's very busy work, saving and/or running the galaxy, hence their [[ParentalSubstitute nanny]], Winter Celchu, doing a lot of the work in actually raising them.

* ''{{Literature/Beastly}}'': Kyle's father never paid much attention to him even before the curse, and Linda's father is a drug user who gives her up to what he believes is imprisonment in a beast's dungeon. Both of their mothers also died when they were young This is one of the things they [[NotSoDifferent bond over]], really.

* ''Literature/TheShadowhunterChronicles:

** Jessamine Lovelace lost his parents, who were exiled by the Shadowhunter community. As a result, she was raised as a mundane and really hates having to return back to the Shadow World.

** Annabeth Chase, Thalia Grace, and Luke Castellan all ran away from home when they were children. In Annabeth's case, the problem was her not being able to accept her stepmother. On the other hand, Thalia and Luke had legitimate reasons to leave their homes. Thalia's mother, as revealed in ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'' was a drunken alcoholic who mistreated her children. Thalia left her when she presented her brother, Jason, to Hera, and never contacted her again until she died of a car accident. Meanwhile, Luke's mother was driven insane by the Oracle at Delphi, meaning she was in no condition to support any family.

** Hazel Levesque is an interesting case. She and her mother died together during the 1940s. Hazel was subsequently resurrected, but not her mother, who wandered into the the Fields of Ashpodel and is never seen again.
** Reyna and her sister, Hylla, departed from Puerto Rico after the former was forced to kill their father, who went insane and turned into a ''mania''.

* ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'':
** Jason's mom. [[spoiler: To be fair, she's following orders from Jupiter when she leaves him at the Wolf House. On the other hand she's a drug-taking mess, but on the third hand she became that way because she was cursed by Hera/Juno for having an affair with Zeus/Jupiter in the first place, although the affair was his fault.]]
** Queen Marie, Hazel's mother, actively (if unintentionally) cursed her daughter and resented Hazel for it when bad stuff started happening. [[spoiler: On the other hand Queen Marie only helps Gaea on condition of Hazel's safety and survival and her last living act is to futilely try to shield Hazel from the cave in.]]

* In ''Literature/TheHungerGames'', Delly Carwright's parents [[spoiler:died in the District 12 bombing]], which also killed [[spoiler: Peeta's family]].
* ''Literature/TheInfernalDevices'':
** Tessa Gray's parents died when she was three.
** Everyone else suffers from this. And I mean ''[[{{BrutalHonesty}} everyone]]''. Jem even mentions that [[{{ConvenientlyAnOrphan}} everyone is an orphan]]. To be fair, this is what the Institute is ''for''. It's essentially an orphanage for Shadowhunters. If any of them had parents, they would be living with them. [[spoiler: Except Will and later Cecily, whose parents don't count since they're not Shadowhunters.]]

* In ''Literature/TheMortalInstruments'', Sebastian Verlac's parents were killed by demons shortly after arriving in France.

* Joan Lowry Nixon's first few ''Orphan Train'' books dealt with six siblings whose widowed mother sent them out west for a better life. Most of the kids remain with their adoptive families even after she moves west herself and remarries.