Prefaces Writing Sampler

Prefaces was the last of four books by Søren Kierkegaard to appear within a space of two weeks in June 1844. Three Upbuilding Discourses and Philosophical Fragments were published first, followed by The Concept of Anxiety. This last volume, altlhough it had the usual complement of an upbuilding work, also had a companion of a different kind, the comically ironic Prefaces, published on the same day. 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. At the same time it tightly expresses themes characteristic of the entire authorship, including subjectivity and Christian devotion.Shortly after publishing Prefaces, Kierkegaard began to prepare Writing Sampler as a sequel. This next work considers the themes of Prefaces but in yet a more ironical and satirical vein. Writing Sampler remained among Kierkegaard's unpublished writings during his lifetime and appears here for the first time as Kierkegaard originally envisioned it, in the company of Prefaces.