Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (printed version)
Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (SKS) is a critical, annotated edition of Kierkegaard’s authorship. The edition consists of 55 volumes, i.e., 28 volumes of text matched with 27 volumes of commentary. The work on the edition began in 1994, concurrent with the foundation of Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, and was brought to completion in 2012.
SKS is divided into four groups
- Published works – SKS, volumes 1-14
- Unpublished works – SKS, volumes 15-16
- Journals, Notebooks, and Papers – SKS, volumes 17-27
- Letters and Dedications – SKS, volume 28
For the first time, these four groups are published in one comprehensive edition. Each group is distinguished with its own colour: 1. light blue, 2. green, 3. orange, and 4. purple. Internally the groups are in chronological order.
Group 1 contains all the works that Kierkegaard published himself or had published for him. The group consists of two categories of writings: published books and pamphlets, and published newspaper articles.
Group 2 contains writings that Kierkegaard did not publish, but put aside in a complete form, which in most cases equals a fair copy.
Group 3 consists of the following sub-categories: (1) The Youth Journals AA-KK from 1833 to1846, and the 36 NB-Journals from March 1846 to December 1854. (2) The Notebooks 1-14 from 1833 to 1843, and Notebook 15 from 1849. (3) The Papers, that is, 591 leaves, sheets, pieces of paper, slices of paper, pieces of cardboard, staplings, etc. from the autumn of 1830 to the late summer of 1855.
Group 4 contains the letters to and from Kierkegaard (from 1829 until1855), a little more than 300, and the known handwritten dedications in the complimentary copies of the published works, a little less than 120.
The establishment of all the texts has been carried out in accordance with the editorial principles of New Philology. This means that the establishment of the texts of the published works is based on the first editions, while the establishment of the texts of the unpublished writings, journals, notebooks, papers, and dedications is based on the manuscripts. The only exceptions are the cases where the handwritten original has been lost. The dedications are established on the basis of the known complimentary copies, and in rare cases on transcripts.
The journals and notebooks are published for the first time in the form in which Kierkegaard wrote them, that is, in a double-column wide format. This is a typographical novelty that allows the reader to follow how Kierkegaard folded the pages vertically, wrote his annotation in the inner column, and inserted his additions and later comments in the outer column. To a certain extent, he follows the same procedure in the papers. The commentary volumes, which systematically accompany the textual volumes and are accordingly marked with a ”K”, contain a presentation of the text, and textual and historical explanations (a so-called Realkommentar) together with calendars, various lists, and indexes.
The presentation of the texts consists of a description of the whole manuscript material and of its genesis. For the journals, notebooks, papers, and letters, this presentation accounts for the date and chronology. Moreover, the presentation of the published works also contains a description of the procedure of publishing, while lists of contents are provided for the journals and notebooks. The dedications are furnished with a comprehensive introduction instead of presentations.
The textual and historical explanations provide explanations of foreign words, old Danish words and sayings, proverbs and colloquialisms, together with explanations of facts and situations that are not readily comprehensible. Translations are provided of all citations, expressions, and phrases in foreign languages. Moreover, attempts have been made to identify all citations, direct or indirect references, and obvious or hidden allusions to Kierkegaard’s own writings as well as to the Bible.
Digital Edition
The digitized Søren Kierkegaards Writings are no longer accessible through the SKS-website (sks.dk). As the result of a collaboration between the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre and the Royal Danish Library a new presentation of SKS can be found at Det Kgl. Biblioteks Tekstportal - SKS.