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My Path to Atheism is a collection of essays by Annie Besant, published in 1877. Besant, once the wife of an Anglican clergyman, had broken with Christianity, separated from her husband and become one of the best-known speakers of the National Secular Society, working alongside Charles Bradlaugh on the radical paper the National Reformer.

The essays are arranged to follow the stages of her own loss of faith. She begins with the doctrines that first troubled her, questioning the divinity of Jesus, comparing the Gospel of John with the other three Gospels, and examining the atonement, eternal punishment and the inspiration of scripture. She then considers prayer, the religious education of children and the arguments for the existence of God, and sets out a more positive rationalist outlook. The final part turns to the Church of England itself, working through the Book of Common Prayer service by service, from baptism and marriage to burial, ordination and the Thirty-Nine Articles, before closing on the Catechism.

The book is a direct, personal and argumentative record of Victorian freethought, written by a woman at a time when such views carried real social and legal costs. It will interest readers of religious history, the history of secularism and women's rights, and anyone curious about Besant, who later took very different paths as a Theosophist and Indian nationalist.

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My Path to Atheism is a remarkable document in many ways, not least that it was written by a woman in Victorian England, not the most open free-thinking of societies, especially for women at that time. It needed a remarkable woman to write such a revolutionary and to 19th century minds, heretical document in a society where the Church had such a stronghold. Besant herself was originally married to a clergyman, but her increasingly anti-religious views and writings led to a legal separation. She went on to become a member of the National Secular Society and thence to co-edit the National Reformer, which put forth ideas on revolutionary ideas at the time such as trades unions, national education, birth control and so on. In 1877 Besant published this book 'My Path to Atheism' which was compiled from a series of lectures in which she surgically dissects the basic tenets of Christianity. As one reads the chapters, one can follow the evolution of her ideas from Theism to Atheism, ending up with a stunning refutation of the Church of England Catechism. (Summary by Kevin Green)