Although her published work comprises sixteen volumes--including fiction, essays, and autobiography--Nellie Letitia McClung will be remembered chiefly for her contributions to the cause of feminism and women's suffrage. However, her literary efforts, too, still hold some intrinsic value, both artistically and historically.

McClung was born Nellie Letitia Mooney in Chatsworth, Ontario, on 20 October 1873 to John and Letitia McCurdy Mooney. In 1880 her family moved west to homestead land in Manitoba. Her childhood in this rural, pioneering community shaped both her imagination and her character. After graduating from normal school in 1889 McClung taught in rural and semirural schools until 1896, when she married Robert Wesley McClung, a pharmacist, and settled in Manitou, Manitoba. They had five children. Here she wrote her first novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny (1908), which grew out of a short story composed for a magazine contest. The narrative, with its emphasis on the everyday life of a farming...