Kierkegaard's Writings, IX, Volume 9 Prefaces Writing Sampler [Paperback]

Prefaceswas the last of four books by S?ren Kierkegaard to appear within two weeks in June 1844.Three Upbuilding DiscoursesandPhilosophical Fragmentswere published first, followed byThe Concept of Anxietyand its companion--published on the same day--the comically ironicPrefaces. Presented as a set of prefaces without a book to follow, this work is a satire on literary life in nineteenth-century Copenhagen, a lampoon of Danish Hegelianism, and a prefiguring of Kierkegaard's final collision with Danish Christendom.

Shortly after publishingPrefaces, Kierkegaard began to prepareWriting Sampleras a sequel.Writing Samplerconsiders the same themes taken up inPrefacesbut in yet a more ironical and satirical vein. AlthoughWriting Samplerremained unpublished during his lifetime, it is presented here as Kierkegaard originally envisioned it, in the company ofPrefaces.

Todd W. Nicholis Associate Professor of Church History at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota. These new translations are excellent. The definitive edition of theWritings. The first volume . . . indicates the scholarly value of the entire series: an introduction setting the work in the context of Kierkegaard's development; a remarkably clear translation; and concluding sections of intelligent notes.