History ParentalAbandonment / Literature

* Somewhat obscure children's book ''Literature/TheDivide'' has an interesting variation. Protagonist Felix is TrappedInAnotherWorld, but we ''do'' see how his parents are affected by his mysterious disappearance. They ain't happy.

* ''Literature/LoveLettersToTheDead'': [[GriefInducedSplit 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.

* ''{{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 [[CommonalityConnection bond over]], really.

* The Dunbar brothers from ''Literature/TheBridgeOfClay''. Their mother dies and their father abandons them, so they have to manage on their own, even though the oldest [[CharacterNarrator Matthew]] is barely 18.
* [[BadPowersGoodPeople Farideh]] and her twin sister [[CuteBruiser Havilar]] of ''Literature/BrimstoneAngels'' were abandoned as infants outside the gates of a remote village. Exactly what happened there remains unclear, though it's later revealed that the twins are direct descendants of the infamous warlock Bryseis Kakistos (the eponymous Brimstone Angel) and its implied their parents weren't exactly model citizens either [[spoiler: which is confirmed when Farideh eventually meets her biological mother]]. Fortunately for them, they were HappilyAdopted by [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Mehen]] and consider ''him'' their father regardless of biological relation.

* In ''Literature/TheButterflyGarden'', Inara has an absolutely horrid childhood that results in her becoming a BrokenBird.
** Her parents were completely and utterly disinterested in her. This neglect leads to a moment where she's abandoned at an amusement park carousel; her parents refuse to be on the same side of the carousel while she rides it and ''both'' leave to chase a new affair, each assuming the other is watching Inara. She finds herself completely alone in a busy park and neither of her parents will answer the phone--she only makes it home that night because her neighbor was willing to drive four hours to pick her up...because he's a pedophile expecting favors. When they eventually divorce they're able to immediately decide on how to split up their possessions, only to spend months arguing over who gets stuck with the kid.
** Inara's taken in by her grandmother who also doesn't give a damn about her. She raises herself while her grandmother drinks, smokes, and watches TV. Her parents never bother to call or write and stop paying their shared child support within a few months. When her grandmother dies Inara takes what money she can find and disappears into the BigApplesauce, with a fake ID and the name "Inara", rather than risk being placed back with her parents or another relation.

* It's mentioned in ''Literature/CatPack'' that Texas Jake's mother abandoned her litter as soon as they were weaned. She didn't want kittens in the first place.

* ''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.

* Taran of Creator/LloydAlexander's ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfPrydain'' was raised on a farm by two old guys, neither of whom are in any way relatives. In ''Taran Wanderer'' he tries to find out who his parents were, and ends up losing interest (The final book had Dallben explain Taran's ultimate heritage, which was that he found Taran on the site of a bloody massacre - Dallben was pretty sure that Taran's parents were among the fallen, but had no way of identifying which ones they were). Princess Eilonwy's royal parents are dead, as is their kingdom. She has an evil aunt, however. Gurgi, meanwhile, was such an orphan that nobody was even sure what species he was.

* In the third act of ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'', VillainProtagonist Alex's parents send him away upon his return home from jail, much to his bitter disappointment, [[TheSociopath not that they can be blamed]]. They ''do'' come back and apologize to him after they learn of his [[spoiler: [[DrivenToSuicide suicide attempt]]]]. Of course, he tells them he might come back, but they've got to remember [[JerkAss who's really in charge]].

** Averted in ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'', where he has both parents, and ''their'' parents are present as well. The first FilmOfTheBook plays this straight, as his father passed away before the story begins, and ''both'' parents are absent in the 2010 opera ''Theatre/TheGoldenTicket''.

* Not uncommon in ''{{Literature/Dinoverse}}''. Bertram's mother left the family for another man, and his father loves his work so much that he tends to forget Bertram, even though he's fond of his kid. Janine's dad died and she's increasingly distant from her mother, who never wants to talk to her - [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou for a good reason]].

* Absolutely hammered in the once-popular antebellum girl's series ''Literature/ElsieDinsmore''. Elsie comes about after her father elopes with a beautiful young woman, who dies soon after her birth. The death causes her father to abandon his new daughter in his grief, so she is left with her grandparents, who vacillate between distant and abusive, who make her spend her days in the care of a tutor who also goes between distant and abusive. The only adult in Elsie's life who shows her any affection is her maid [[{{Mammy}} Chloe]], but she doesn't really count, [[HappinessInSlavery because she's not quite a person]]. When Elsie's father comes back when she's 8, he tries to be a good father, but he thinks Elsie is being purposely impudent and punishes her by not allowing her near him, despite her pleas for his love and attention. Things finally come to a head where she develops BrainFever, [[FridgeLogic somehow]], after her father threatens to send her to Catholic school. He does realize the error of his ways, [[HeelFaithTurn converts]], and they have a somewhat heartfelt reunion, if you can get over the fact he ''beat her with a riding crop'' after she refused to play secular piano music on a Sunday. There's a reason these books are rarely read outside of Christian circles, and even then modern reprints tone down his treatment of Elsie significantly.

* The children in ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic'', '''LIKE WHOA'''. Not only does their father dying in a car accident set off the horrifying events to come, but they spend the rest of the book locked up in the attic of their grandparents' huge house with their mother showing less and less interest in their well-being while she attempts to reconcile with her dying father to try and get written back into his will. Meanwhile, during their confinement, their grandmother becomes more emotionally abusive towards the children because she believes them to be inherently evil. [[spoiler: They are the product of incest.]]
** And if you can believe it, it gets worse: [[spoiler: When one of the younger children gets sick and dies, they figure out that their mother is trying to poison them so she can get remarried and start over with a 'clean slate'. Yeah...]]

** J.K's morbid attitude towards parents comes from the fact in RealLife she lost her beloved mother at a early age and is no longer on Speaking terms with her dad. J.K admitted later had her mother not died, the Harry Potter books would likely be completely different.
* In ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'', Lyra Belacqua starts off the series being raised (for a given value of the term) by the faculty and staff of an Oxford ''college'', [[spoiler:believing herself to be an orphan whose parents died in an airship crash. Turns out they're both alive -- her father is the man she'd been raised believing was her uncle, her mother is her malign FairyGodmother equivalent -- and they had a fairly solid reason for giving her up: not only was she conceived in adultery, her father had gone on to kill her mother's husband in a duel.]]
** Will Parry. When we first meet him, he's forced to abandon his mentally ill mother who he's been taking care of from a young age to go on his quest. When he finally finds his DisappearedDad, [[spoiler:he's immediately killed.]]
** Happens to many children in Cittàgazze. Their parents suffer a FateWorseThanDeath by the Specters who suck out their souls.

* Common in books by Creator/TanithLee. Creator/JamesNicoll had a project of reviewing one Lee a week for a year. [[http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/wont-you-let-me-in His review]] of ''Black Unicorn'' includes a table of dead parents: after 29 books we have 27 missing or dead mothers and 21 missing or dead fathers.
* Many characters in Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' and ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' lost either one or both parents at an early age: Frodo (both his parents died in a boating accident), Aragorn (his father died when he was two), Túrin (his mother sent him away shortly after his father was captured by Morgoth), Tuor (his father died in battle before he was born and his mother died shortly after giving birth to him), Elrond and Elros (after they were captured in battle, their parents believed them dead and sailed away to obtain divine help) etc.
** This may be because Tolkien himself was orphaned in childhood; his father died when he was four and his mother died when he was twelve.

* Sol's parents from ''Literature/WarriorCats''. Sol's father didn't like his mate, Cinders, or his kits; he rarely visited them, and brought them very little food. Eventually he ends up leaving them for a new mate who didn't complain as much as Cinders. Cinders, who never particularly liked her kits, ended up abandoning them at different Twoleg homes.

* The entire plot of ''Literature/BearOtterAndTheKid'' begins when Bear's mother abandons him and his five year old brother three days before Bear's eighteenth birthday. She leaves him one hundred and fifty seven dollars and fifty cents cash, a mispelled note telling him he was on his own and saying how he didn't ''need'' to go to college, did he? And ends up sending him a legally dubious documentation of power of attourney over his little brother-- after draining Bear's savings account of all the money he had saved up for college. Her abandonment is shown to have done severe and lasting emotional and mental damage to both Bear and Tyson, who are still dealing with the fallout of it decades later.

* In Creator/RobertEHoward's Literature/ConanTheBarbarian story "Literature/AWitchShallBeBorn", Salome survives abandonment only to be rejected by the man who raised her for being not sufficiently interested in ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow.
-->''He drove me from him at last, saying that I was but a common witch in spite of his teachings, and not fit to command the mighty sorcery he would have taught me. He would have made me queen of the world and ruled the nations through me, he said, but I was only a harlot of darkness. But what of it? I could never endure to seclude myself in a golden tower, and spend the long hours staring into a crystal globe, mumbling over incantations written on serpent's skin in the blood of virgins, poring over musty volumes in forgotten languages.\\
He said I was but an earthly sprite, knowing naught of the deeper gulfs of cosmic sorcery. Well, this world contains all I desire--power, and pomp, and glittering pageantry, handsome men and soft women for my paramours and my slaves.''

* ''Literature/{{Momo}}'': Momo doesn't know where her parents are, and before the book started she had escaped from an orphanage of some kind. Her parents are never mentioned again after the first chapter.

* ''Literature/PippiLongstocking'': Pippi lost her mother as a baby and likes to think that she is an angel watching over her from Heaven. Pippi's father, a captain, gets lost at sea but later reunites with her.

* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' features Tobias, who from the get-go is described as the abandoned child. His mother ran away and he never knew his father, though we do later find out that his father is actually [[spoiler: Elfangor]]. Other than that, Marco also lacks a mother figure, as she apparently died a few years ago (though it turns out that [[spoiler: she is Visser One's host]]). Jake also loses his parents when they [[spoiler: become Controllers]] near the end of the series. On the flip side, some of the other members of the Animorphs force their parents to abandon them (similar to Hermione in ''Harry Potter'' above) to protect them from the Yeerks.

* ''{{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 [[CommonalityConnection bond over]], really.

* In ''Literature/WiseChild'', Wise Child's parents are both alive but absent. Her father is a sailor at sea and her mother left her, so she was raised by her grandmother. The one-two punch of being deserted by both her parents has given her something of an abandonment complex, and she takes it hard the first time that Juniper leaves her at the house alone to go on a brief trip.

** Candy's birth parents are killed in a traffic accident when she's ten months old. Her adoptive mother dies of an unspecified illness a few years before the events of the book, and her adoptive father is presumed dead after a bionuclear war, since he was in Washington, D.C., a known target for heavy bombing, at the time war broke out.

* ''Literatue/NowhereStars'' starts with Liadain being left in a hospice ward by her father, now that her disease has been decalred terminal. It's implied her mother died of the same disease when Liadain was an infant. By Phase 2, he's called her exactly once to see how she's doing, and that conversation is ''painfully'' awkward. It's the main reason Liadain doesn't tell him she's become a [[MagicalGirl Keeper]].

* ''Literature/AshASecretHistory'': [[EstablishingCharacter Moment In the very first scene of the book]] we learn that the titular protagonist Ash is mentally prepared to thrive in the harshest of {{CrapsackWorld}}s. Children in Ash's mercenary camp grow from infancy with no parental supervision at all, because even the mothers take no responsibility for their children, so Ash is forced to suckle off lactating dogs, eat discarded scraps, and whore herself for food to survive.

* ''Literature/TheHanSoloTrilogy'': Something happened with Han's parents, so he ended up a street urchin, but he never learns exactly what. Most likely they're dead.

** [[ButtMonkey Neville]] [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Longbottom's]] parents didn't die either, but as one character puts it, "Better dead than what happened to them..." as they were [[spoiler:tortured into permanent insanity by Death Eaters using the Cruciatus curse, and they don't recognise their son when he comes to visit]]. This is why he's raised by his domineering grandmother, who, on her first appearance, seems disappointed that Neville didn't turn out more like his dad.

** J.K’s morbid attitude towards parents comes from the fact in RealLife she lost her beloved mother at a early age and is no longer on Speaking terms with her dad. J.K admitted later had her mother not died, the Harry Potter books would likely be completely different.

* In ''Literature/DeltoraQuest'' parents have a high mortality rate.
** Jasmine’s parents were taken from her by the Grey Guards when she was a little girl and mother died in the Shadow Lands. [[spoiler: Jasmine’s father however survived and became the RebelLeader Doom]].
** Barda lost his mother when EvilChancellor Prandine pushed her down a staircase.
** [[spoiler: Lief loses his father at end of the first series and his mother barely survives the third series before passing away at later date]].
** Dain’s patents were apparently killed by Grey Guards when he was kid [[spoiler: it’s actually a BS fabrication meant to lead the heroes into thinking he was the true heir.]]

* ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'': Eragon had initially lost his mother Selena after she gave birth to him. He didn't know who his father was at first, as she died without telling anyone. Eragon was raised by his maternal uncle Garrow. Later, he was told one of [[BigBad Galbatorix]]'s followers, Morzan, was his father (it turns out Selena was his wife, and had another son by him). This turns out to be not be true though. [[spoiler:Eragon's father was Bron, who had an affair with Selena. By the time he learns this, Brom's dead.]]

* ''Literature/OfFireAndStars'': Mare lost her mother as a young girl, and it's made clear she misses her deeply. She mentions the only thing besides caring for horses she's good at was signing. As a child, she'd sing with her mother, but hasn't ever since she died. Later, her father is also assassinated.