Kierkegaard was, and this cannot be emphasized enough, a truly Nordic figure of uncanny chasms and unfathomable depths, with a profundity akin to the eternally raging sea. Walter Nigg. This volume brings together four shorter essays by Kierkegaard from the years 1843 to 1849, which are no less central to Kierkegaard's philosophical-theological thought than his early major works. 'The Sickness Unto Death' (1849) examines, just like the essay 'The Concept of Anxiety' (1844), the nature of sin. While Kierkegaard in 'The Concept of Anxiety' consciously analyzes this phenomenon only from a psychological perspective as a prerequisite for original sin, in 'The Sickness Unto Death' he starts directly from Christian premises and sharply opposes Hegel, who, in his view, distorts the core concepts of the Christian faith, especially the character of guilt.