Greenacre presents a fascinating sketch of the life of Hans Christian Andersen and discusses his relationship to children, which was permeated by extraordinary ambivalence, pervasive anxiety, and a phobia of bodily contact. She surmises that Andersen, the son of a prostitute who married only two months before his birth, was neurotically preoccupied with the uncertainty of his paternity (and consequently tended toward family romance), with his relationship during his first year of life with his illiterate and superstitious mother, with his bisexual identification, and with rage. He was never able to marry and become a father, but sustained himself with a conviction of his own greatness as a gift from God. From her analytic experience with individuals susceptible, like Andersen, to explosive wishes to kill, Greenacre surmises that he suffered from unalleviated infantile distress.