A Canadianist, Dr. Peggy Lynn Kelly received her PhD in 1999, from the University of Alberta. She has published articles on Madge Macbeth, Dorothy Livesay, and the politics of the Anglo-Canadian literary field.

    Macbeth´s fifth novel, Shackles, a pivotal work of early twentieth-century Canadian literature, recounts a vibrant period of first-wave feminism in Canada. First published in 1926, Shackles revovles around a middle-class Canadian woman, Naomi Lennox, and her search for acceptance and respect as a writer. Besides the protagonist´s struggle for the autonomy in which write Shackles portrays many of the major issues in Canadian public discourse of 1900-1930: the rise of the maternal feminist, the New Woman´s role in Canadian society, the conflict between free thinkers and the established churches, power relations in heterosexual unions, contradictions and tensions between domestic and public spaces, and appropriate roles for working- and middle-class women. This new edition of Madge Macbeth´s controversial novel includes an overview of her life and work in the Introduction, Explanatory Notes, a Bibliography, reviews of the first edition, and three key articles by Macbeth.