The first part of the series is entitled “Kierkegaard’s Sources.” This category includes articles that perform source-work research in order to discover and document the numerous sources of Kierkegaard’s thought. These are divided into individual volumes according to the historical period of the sources in question, beginning with Kierkegaard’s use of the Bible and ending with his use of Danish works from his own time.

This part of the series is conceived, on the one hand, as a kind of reference work, which attempts to set forth factual information about specific places in Kierkegaard’s authorship where he quotes or alludes to the given figures or themes. It is, on the other hand, also a critical work, which features thesis-oriented and interpretive articles about Kierkegaard’s reception of the given figures in a way that stimulates further research. Altogether this section contains 15 individual tomes.

Reviews

“This multi-volume reference work is a contribution of the highest caliber to academic research on Kierkegaard …. Kierkegaard was a writer of the here and now and as such his authorship is deeply intertwined with other writers of his own time. The articles in these volumes testify to the fact that international scholars have never before been so aware of the contemporary context of Kierkegaard's writings. This is one of the most powerful aspects of Stewart's contribution. The greatest achievement of the section on ‘Sources’ is the fact that you can now acquire deep insight into Kierkegaard's profound knowledge of the central Western texts in the ancient and modern traditions of philosophy, theology, and literature ….The editing is of the highest academic standards. The bibliographies are also an important contribution to Kierkegaard research in their own right. It is a very helpful feature that they include page references to the works in Kierkegaard's own library that discuss the writer at hand. For instance, if you want to know what other views on Shakespeare Kierkegaard would have known about through his own book collection, you can find the references here. The bibliographies also include excellent references to secondary literature. The general editor Jon Stewart together with his co-editors must be thanked for orchestrating such a vast undertaking. Their work is nothing less than a largesse to the future of Kierkegaard scholarship.”
Mads Sohl Jessen, Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter, no. 58, November 2011, pp. 4-5.