ABSTRACT
The author introduces material from the part of the Melanie Klein Archive that deals with the subject of Klein’s final published paper ‘On the sense of loneliness’. These are PP/KLE/C.27, C.28 and C.29 and are available digitally through the Wellcome Library. Four differing versions of the paper, prepared for spoken presentations to different audiences, were written between 1958 and 1960. There is evidence from Klein’s copious additional notes that she intended to write a monograph addressing loneliness from a psychoanalytic point of view. At the time of Klein’s death, as well as elaborating her own thinking on the topic, she was gathering and incorporating the comments of a number of close colleagues. Previously unpublished letters to Klein from Wilfred Bion and Elliot Jaques and extracts from Klein’s own notes are included, organized under a number of headings. The author suggests that some of the themes Klein was working on may have had particular relevance for her personally in what turned out to be the very last months of her life.
