Author Guide · Philosophy & Theology
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On 20 February 1843 a Copenhagen bookseller put out a two-volume book called Either/Or. Its editor, “Victor Eremita”, claimed he had found the papers in a secret drawer of a second-hand writing desk: the notes of a young aesthete, a long “Diary of a Seducer”, and the letters of a judge urging him to marry. The real author was Søren Kierkegaard, 29, who had broken off his engagement to Regine Olsen sixteen months earlier. Over the next seven years he published book after book under names such as Johannes de Silentio, Johannes Climacus and Anti-Climacus, alongside religious discourses signed with his own name. He died in 1855, aged 42, and is now read as the founder of existentialism. This guide covers his 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1843–1855 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Søren Kierkegaard’s best-known books are Either/Or (1843), Fear and Trembling (1843), The Concept of Anxiety (1844), Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846) and The Sickness unto Death (1849), most of them published under pseudonyms. Start with Fear and Trembling, his short book on Abraham and Isaac; the pseudonyms matter more than they seem, and the page explains who speaks in each book.
Where to Start with Søren Kierkegaard
If you want the short classic
→ Fear and Trembling (1843) — Abraham, Isaac and the “knight of faith”.
If you want the book that made his name
→ Either/Or (1843) — the aesthete, the judge and the seducer’s diary.
If you want his account of despair
→ The Sickness unto Death (1849) — the self that cannot become itself.
If you want him writing under his own name
→ Works of Love (1847) — his book on love as a Christian duty.
13 Søren Kierkegaard Books, in Order
Either/Or
Published in two volumes in Copenhagen on 20 February 1843 (Enten – Eller), edited by the fictional Victor Eremita. Part I holds the papers of “A”, an aesthete who lives for the interesting moment, ending with “The Diary of a Seducer”; Part II is two long letters to him from “B”, Judge Wilhelm, defending the ethical life of marriage and duty. It established Kierkegaard’s reputation in Denmark.
Fear and Trembling
Published on 16 October 1843 (Frygt og Bæven), on the same day as Repetition. Johannes de Silentio retells God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and asks whether faith can stand above ethics. He sets the “knight of faith” against the “knight of infinite resignation” and admits he cannot understand Abraham. It is one of the shortest of his major books and now one of the most widely read.
Repetition
Published on 16 October 1843 (Gjentagelsen). Constantin Constantius tells of a melancholy young man who proposes to a girl, is accepted, then changes his mind — close to Kierkegaard’s own break with Regine Olsen. Constantin travels back to Berlin to see whether an earlier stay can be repeated; the young man turns to the Book of Job.
Philosophical Fragments
A short book (Philosophiske Smuler) by Johannes Climacus, with S. Kierkegaard named as editor. It sets the Socratic idea that truth is already within us, waiting to be recollected, against the Christian claim that truth must be given from outside, by a god who appears in time as a servant.
The Concept of Anxiety
Published in 1844 (Begrebet Angest) under the name Vigilius Haufniensis, “the watchman of Copenhagen”. A psychological study of original sin, it describes anxiety as “the dizziness of freedom”: the state of a person who sees that they can choose. Older English editions call it The Concept of Dread.
Stages on Life’s Way
Papers supposedly found and published by Hilarius Bookbinder. It opens with “In Vino Veritas”, a banquet at which five speakers, including Victor Eremita and Johannes the Seducer, give speeches on women and love, then moves through Judge Wilhelm on marriage to a long diary, “Guilty?/Not Guilty?”, by a man who has broken an engagement, edited by Frater Taciturnus.
Concluding Unscientific Postscript
Johannes Climacus returns with a “postscript” several times longer than the book it follows. Against Hegel’s system it argues that truth is subjectivity: what matters is how a person exists in relation to what they believe. It closes with “A First and Last Explanation”, in which Kierkegaard acknowledges, in his own name, that he wrote the pseudonymous books.
Two Ages
A review of Two Ages, an anonymous Danish novel by Thomasine Gyllembourg, that grows into a diagnosis of his own time: an age of reflection and publicity in which “the public” levels everyone. Its final section has long circulated in English on its own as The Present Age.
Works of Love
Published under his own name in 1847 (Kjerlighedens Gjerninger). In a series of deliberations on the commandment “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”, he argues that love is a duty, not a feeling, and that the neighbour is every person, not the people we prefer.
The Sickness unto Death
Published in 1849 (Sygdommen til Døden) under a new pseudonym, Anti-Climacus, with Kierkegaard as editor. The sickness is despair, analysed as the self’s failure to become itself, whether by not wanting to be oneself or by wanting it on one’s own terms. The title comes from the raising of Lazarus in John 11.
Practice in Christianity
Anti-Climacus again (Indøvelse i Christendom), on what it would mean to be a contemporary of Christ rather than an admirer from a safe distance of eighteen centuries. Its sharp contrast between real discipleship and comfortable church membership anticipates his later attack on the Danish church. Older English editions call it Training in Christianity.
The Point of View for My Work as an Author
Written in 1848 and published by his brother Peter Christian Kierkegaard in 1859, four years after his death; a shorter piece, On My Work as an Author, appeared in 1851. Kierkegaard presents his whole authorship, pseudonyms included, as a single religious project: to make people aware of what it means to become a Christian.
The Moment
A series of pamphlets (Øieblikket) he wrote and paid for himself in 1855, the last year of his life, after a dozen articles in the newspaper Fædrelandet. Nine issues appeared; a tenth was found ready among his papers. They attack the Danish state church and argue that official Christianity had quietly abolished the Christianity of the New Testament.
In What Order to Read Søren Kierkegaard
The books do not form a series, but they answer one another. Either/Or sets up the aesthetic and the ethical life; Fear and Trembling and Repetition, published on the same day, push past both towards faith; Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript belong together as one argument by Johannes Climacus; The Sickness unto Death and Practice in Christianity are the two books by Anti-Climacus.
Note who is speaking. Kierkegaard asked readers not to quote the pseudonyms as if they were his own views, and each author holds a different “life-view”. A good order for newcomers is to start with the short books, then try the long ones once you know the voices.
A reading path
1. Fear and Trembling (1843)
2. Either/Or (1843)
3. The Sickness unto Death (1849)
4. Works of Love (1847)
5. Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846)
Everything Else Søren Kierkegaard Published
Beyond the 13 key books: 9 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Early writings
2
2 books · 1838–1841
- 1838From the Papers of One Still Livinghis first book, a critical review of Hans Christian Andersen’s novel Only a Fiddler
- 1841The Concept of Ironyhis dissertation, with Continual Reference to Socrates
Upbuilding and Christian discourses (signed)
5
5 books · 1843–1851
- 1843Two Upbuilding Discoursesthe first of the short religious discourses he published under his own name alongside the pseudonymous books
- 1847Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spiritsincluding “Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing”
- 1848Christian Discoursesfour series of discourses
- 1849The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Airthree godly discourses on Matthew 6
- 1851For Self-Examinationrecommended to the present age
Other pseudonymous works
2
2 books · 1844–1848
- 1844Prefacesa book of nothing but prefaces, by Nicolaus Notabene
- 1848The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actressa newspaper essay on the actress Johanne Luise Heiberg, by Inter et Inter
The years · 1813–1855
Quick facts about Søren Kierkegaard
- Known for
- Writing philosophy as a cast of invented authors, and putting the single individual, choice, anxiety and faith at the centre of thought, which later made him the founding figure of existentialism.
- 1813
- Born in Copenhagen
- 1855
- The Moment; dies in Copenhagen
- Born
- 5 May 1813, Copenhagen, the youngest of seven children of the merchant Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard
- Education
- University of Copenhagen; dissertation The Concept of Irony, 1841
- Engaged
- To Regine Olsen, September 1840; he broke it off in October 1841
- Pseudonyms
- Victor Eremita, Johannes de Silentio, Constantin Constantius, Johannes Climacus, Vigilius Haufniensis, Anti-Climacus and others
- Died
- 11 November 1855, Frederiks Hospital, Copenhagen, aged 42
- Buried
- Assistens Cemetery, Copenhagen
The red mark is 1843: Fear and Trembling, his book on Abraham and Isaac, published the same day as Repetition.
How Søren Kierkegaard Writes: A Cast of Authors
Most of his major books are signed by invented authors, each with a name that hints at a position: Johannes de Silentio, who cannot speak about faith; Johannes Climacus, “John the Climber”, who is not a Christian; Anti-Climacus, who writes as a Christian to a degree Kierkegaard said he himself did not reach. He called this indirect communication: instead of telling the reader what to believe, he shows a way of life from the inside and leaves the choice to the reader.
The pseudonymous books borrow the forms of fiction: papers found in a desk, a diary, letters, a banquet with speeches, a book made only of prefaces. Next to them, under his own name, he published upbuilding discourses addressed to “that single individual”, so that the aesthetic and the religious writing appeared side by side. In The Point of View he said he had held out Either/Or with his left hand and Two Upbuilding Discourses with his right.
His life is in the books without being named: the broken engagement to Regine Olsen runs through Repetition and Stages on Life’s Way, and the mockery of The Corsair sharpened his writing about “the public” in Two Ages. For the writer who took up his attack on comfortable Christianity from the other side, see Friedrich Nietzsche’s books.
Frequently asked questions about Søren Kierkegaard’s books
How many books has Søren Kierkegaard written?
He published more than twenty books in the seventeen years from 1838 to 1855, many of them short, besides a large body of journals. This page lists 22: the 13 key books, from Either/Or (1843) to The Point of View for My Work as an Author (1859), and nine further works in the bibliography.
What are Søren Kierkegaard’s books in order?
Either/Or (1843), Fear and Trembling (1843), Repetition (1843), Philosophical Fragments (1844), The Concept of Anxiety (1844), Stages on Life’s Way (1845), Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), Two Ages (1846), Works of Love (1847), The Sickness unto Death (1849), Practice in Christianity (1850), The Moment (1855) and, published after his death, The Point of View for My Work as an Author (1859).
Where should I start with Søren Kierkegaard?
Fear and Trembling (1843). It is short, it tells a story everyone knows — Abraham and Isaac — and it introduces his central questions about faith and ethics. Read Either/Or next, or a selection from it, to meet the aesthete and the judge.
What is Søren Kierkegaard’s most famous book?
Either/Or made his name in 1843; Fear and Trembling, published eight months later, is now the one most often read and taught. The Sickness unto Death (1849) is the best-known of his later books.
Why did Kierkegaard use pseudonyms?
He called it indirect communication: each pseudonym represents a way of life rather than his own opinion, so that the reader has to choose instead of simply agreeing with an authority. In Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846) he acknowledged in his own name that he had written the pseudonymous books, and asked that quotations from them be attributed to the pseudonyms.
Who was Regine Olsen?
The young woman Kierkegaard became engaged to in September 1840, when she was eighteen. He broke the engagement in October 1841 and left for Berlin, where he worked on Either/Or. She married Johan Frederik Schlegel in 1847. Kierkegaard named her as his heir, and she is buried in the same Copenhagen cemetery.
What was the Corsair affair?
In 1845–46 Kierkegaard, writing as a pseudonym, attacked P. L. Møller, who was connected to the satirical weekly The Corsair. The paper answered with months of mockery and caricatures of him. He withdrew further from public life and gave up the idea of becoming a pastor.
Why did Kierkegaard attack the Danish church?
After Bishop J. P. Mynster died in 1854, Professor H. L. Martensen praised him as one of a line of “witnesses to the truth” going back to the apostles. On 20 December 1854 Kierkegaard replied in the newspaper Fædrelandet, and in 1855 he published The Moment, arguing that the state church had replaced New Testament Christianity with a comfortable imitation. The attack caused a public scandal and was still under way when he died.
Is Kierkegaard the father of existentialism?
He is often called that. Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre, Marcel and Lévinas drew on him, and Wittgenstein called him by far the most profound thinker of the nineteenth century. But Kierkegaard was a Christian writer, and the label covers only part of what he was doing.
When did Kierkegaard die?
On 11 November 1855 in Frederiks Hospital in Copenhagen, aged 42, a few weeks after collapsing in the street. He was buried in Assistens Cemetery.
Footnotes
- Søren Kierkegaard — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Bibliography of Søren Kierkegaard — Wikipedia
- Either/Or (Kierkegaard book) — Wikipedia
- Repetition (Kierkegaard book) — Wikipedia
- Regine Olsen — Wikipedia
- The One-Man Revolution — Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, University of Copenhagen
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”
— Søren Kierkegaard, journal entry, 1843
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