Kierkegaard's Writings, IX:
Prefaces: Writing Sampler
Søren Kierkegaard
Edited and translated with an Introduction and Notes by Todd W. Nichol

Paper | 2009 | $29.95 / £20.95
Cloth | 1998 | $70.00 / £48.95
232 pp. | 6 x 9 | 3 halftones

Shopping Cart | Reviews | Table of Contents

Prefaces was the last of four books by Søren Kierkegaard to appear within two weeks in June 1844. Three Upbuilding Discourses and Philosophical Fragments were published first, followed by The Concept of Anxiety and its companion--published on the same day--the comically ironic Prefaces. 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 publishing Prefaces, Kierkegaard began to prepare Writing Sampler as a sequel. Writing Sampler considers the same themes taken up in Prefaces but in yet a more ironical and satirical vein. Although Writing Sampler remained unpublished during his lifetime, it is presented here as Kierkegaard originally envisioned it, in the company of Prefaces.

Todd W. Nichol is Associate Professor of Church History at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Reviews:

"These new translations are excellent."--Choice

"The definitive edition of the Writings. 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."--Library Journal

Table of Contents:

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION vii
Prefaces 1
PREFACE 3
Preface I 13
Preface II 15
Preface III 22
Preface IV 23
Preface V 27
Preface VI 31
Preface VII 35
Preface VIII 47
Writing Sampler 69
SUPPLEMENT 91
Key to References 92
Original Title Page of Prefaces 94
Selected Entries from Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers Pertaining to Prefaces 97
Original Manuscript Pages of Writing Sampler 122
Selected Entries from Kierkegaard's journals and Papers Pertaining to Writing Sampler 127
EDITORIAL APPENDIX 165
Acknowledgments 167
Collation of Prefaces in the Danish Editions of Kierkegaard's Collected Works 169
Notes 171
Bibliographical Note 199
Index 201

Series:

• Kierkegaard's Writings
  Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Series Editors

Subject Areas:

• Philosophy
• Religion

Shopping Cart:

For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Paper: $29.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-14073-5
Cloth: $70.00 ISBN13: 978-0-691-04827-7

For customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India
Paper: £20.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-14073-5
Cloth: £48.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-04827-7

Prices subject to change without notice

File created: 11/4/2009

Questions and comments to: webmaster@press.princeton.edu
Princeton University Press