This collection is the first focused effort to bring modern research techniques to bear on Kierkegaard's earliest polemical writings and literary efforts as gathered in the first volume of Kierkegaard's Writings under the title Early Polemical Writings. That the analytic capacities and philosophic sophistication of the mature Kierkegaard are not present in these early pieces comes, of course, as no surprise. Rather, these first writings show the young student already at work on many of the issues that occupied him throughout his short life and indicate that he already was experimenting with projected self-images and writing styles.