Upbuilding or edification, is the central theme of Soren Kierkegaard's authorship: only the truth that builds up is truth for you (E02:354). Somewhere along the way, Soren Kierkegaard developed a plan to publish some upbuilding discourses to 'accompany his pseudonymous works. These Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses are the focus of the edifying commentaries in this volume.

In his praise for Part I of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, the eminent Kierkegaard scholar Eduard Geismar said, "I am of the opinion that nothing of what he has written is to such a degree before the face of God. Anyone who really wants to understand Kierkegaard does well to begin with it." These discourses, composed after Kierkegaard had initially intended to end his public writing career, constitute the first work of his "second authorship." Characterized by Kierkegaard as ethical-ironic, Part One, "Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing," offers a penetrating discussion of double-mindedness and ethical integrity. Part Two, "What We Learn from the Lilies in the Field and from the Birds of the Air," humorously exposes an inverted qualitative difference between the learner and the teacher. In Part Three, "The Gospel of Sufferings, Christian Discourses," the philosopher explores how joy can come out of suffering.

The first new translation of Kierkegaard's masterwork in a generation brings to vivid life this essential work of modern philosophy. Brilliantly synthesizing human insights with Christian dogma, Soren Kierkegaard presented, in 1844, The Concept of Anxiety as a landmark "psychological deliberation," suggesting that our only hope in overcoming anxiety was not through "powder and pills" but by embracing it with open arms. While Kierkegaard's Danish prose is surprisingly rich, previous translations—the most recent in 1980—have marginalized the work with alternately florid or slavishly wooden language. With a vibrancy never seen before in English, Alastair Hannay, the world's foremost Kierkegaard scholar, has finally re-created its natural rhythm, eager that this overlooked classic will be revivified as the seminal work of existentialism and moral psychology that it is. From The Concept of Anxiety: "And no Grand Inquisitor has such frightful torments in readiness as has anxiety, and no secret agent knows as cunningly how to attack the suspect in his weakest moment, or to make so seductive the trap in which he will be snared; and no discerning judge understands how to examine, yes, exanimate the accused as does anxiety, which never lets him go, not in diversion, not in noise, not at work, not by day, not by night."

"Just as Howard V. and Edna H. Hong's translation of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits marked the first appearance of this complete title in English in a single volume, this collection of essays is the first to explore the fascinating and powerful compilation of Kierkegaard's writings that clearly initiate the "second authorship.""--BOOK JACKET.