The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
This may reflect the widespread practice of child abandonment in their cultures. On the other hand, the motif is continued through literature where the practice is not widespread. William Shakespeare used the abandonment and discovery of Perdita in "The Winter's Tale," as noted above, and Edmund Spenser reveals in the last Canto of Book 6 of "The Faerie Queene" that the character Pastorella, raised by shepherds, is in fact of noble birth. Henry Fielding, in one of the first novels recognized as such, recounted "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling." In the case of Quasimodo, the eponymous character in Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame", the disfigured child is abandoned at the cathedral's foundling's bed, made available for the leaving of unwanted infants. Ruth Benedict, in studying the Zuni, found that the practice of child abandonment was unknown, but featured heavily in their folktales.