ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to give the reader a brief review of relevant biographical data on Melanie Klein's upbringing, cultural background, education, and life prior to her career in psychoanalysis. It provides selected reminiscences of themes from Klein's life: family and cultural background, sibling group, education, career in psychoanalysis, marriage, children, divorce, and her professional life and work resettled in England. The chapter outlines what might be called the pre-history of child analysis and the reasons behind its slow development. It uses the latter but first discusses their character and en passant some debateable use of them by Grosskurth, Klein's only biographer to date. It discusses the early stages of Klein's career as a psychoanalyst, especially of very young children. Klein moved on to describe her sibling group; she was the youngest of a group of four siblings: her eldest sister Emilie, brother Emanuel, and her middle sister Sidonie.
