Interpreting Divine Unity: Harriet Martineau’s Interreligious Essays

Harriet Martineau’s reputation as a social reformer was established early in her career, when the Unitarian Association awarded her three prizes for essays in which she promoted Unitarianism to Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. Many of Mar-tineau’s later themes can be found in seminal form in these early essays, underscoring the argument that the secular Martineau cannot be understood apart from her early Unitarian framework. This article explores her interreligious essays as a window into her early Unitarian beliefs, as well as a catalyst both to her career as a writer and to her curiosity about and concern for people of different cultures and faiths.