zel’s. On May 29, 1845, he published these discourses under the titleEigh-
teen Edifying Discourses. The financial records show that as of January 1,
1845, after subtracting advertising costs and Philipsen’s commission, Kier-
kegaard had had a credit balance of 224 rixdollars, 1 mark, and 4 shillings
with Philipsen. This would in any case have covered most of Kierkegaard’s
expenses for paper and printing. If he had lost a bit of money on his disserta-
tion, he had earned roughly 100 rixdollars on his discourses, the commercial
value of which he appears to have understood, for in the contract with
Philipsen, he expressly reserved his property rights: “As soon as the first
printing is sold out, the work is again my property.”
Two Ethical-Religious Essaysappeared in 1849; it was printed by Louis
Klein and was the only work to appear on commission through Gyldendal.
The press run was the typical 525 copies; the cost of paper and printing
came to a bit over 53 rixdollars; and the retail price was 3 marks, with
Gyldendal retaining twenty-five percent as commission. It was not a best-
seller, and by 1852 only seventy-four copies had been sold, which in accor-
dance with the usual financial arrangements would have meant that Kier-
kegaard received 21 rixdollars. Reitzel purchased the remainder of the press
run in 1852, but the accounts are so fragmentary that Kierkegaard’s net
earnings cannot be calculated. They were surely quite modest, but it is
hardly likely that he lost any money on theseEssays.
In sum, Kierkegaard earned money on his writings. The books produced
on a royalty basis netted him 2,835 rixdollars, and the books produced on
a commission basis netted him about 2,000 rixdollars, for a grand total of
about 4,835 rixdollars. This was not an enormous sum of money, but for
purposes of comparison it might be mentioned that a department head at
the Customs Inspection in Copenhagen received an annual salary of 600
rixdollars, and that if one was reasonably careful one could support a family
for 400 rixdollars a year. If you were a journeyman artisan, your annual pay
was 200 rixdollars, but on the other hand you had free food and lodging at
the master’s house. In addition to her food and lodging, a housemaid re-
ceived 30 rixdollars a year. If she needed a new pair of shoes, she had to
squeeze three entire rixdollars out of her budget, and she therefore wore
her old shoes for a very long time.
“Year after Year, at My Own Expense”
Even though Kierkegaard’s earnings were not exactly overwhelming, they
nonetheless constitute a direct contradiction of his repeated comments to
the effect that he lost money on his literary production. Socrates refused to