Annie Sophie Cory was the author of popular, racy, exotic novels under the pseudonyms Victoria Cross(e), Vivian Cory and V.C. Griffin.

Life

She was born as the third of three daughters to Colonel Arthur Cory and Fanny Elizabeth Griffin. Her father was employed in the British army at Lahore

Lahore

Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...

, where he was editor of the Lahore arm of The Civil and Military Gazette, and Annie Sophie Cory grew up in India. She completed her education in England. She had her first piece, Theodora, a Fragment, published in the Yellow Book

Yellow Book

The Yellow Book, published in London from 1894 to 1897 by Elkin Mathews and John Lane, later by John Lane alone, and edited by the American Henry Harland, was a quarterly literary periodical that lent its name to the "Yellow" 1890s....

 in 1895. In the same year she wrote The Woman Who Didn't, a response to Grant Allen

Grant Allen

Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen was a science writer, author and novelist, and a successful upholder of the theory of evolution.-Biography:...

's book The Woman Who Did

The Woman Who Did

The Woman Who Did is a novel by Grant Allen about a young, self-assured middle-class woman who defies convention as a matter of principle and who is fully prepared to suffer the consequences of her actions. It was first published in London by John Lane in a series intended to promote the ideal of...

.

She never married, and after her father's death she travelled on the Continent with a male friend (possibly an uncle), who had been involved in the jewellery trade. After his death she settled in Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....

 to live with female friends.

One of her sisters, Adela Florence Nicolson

Adela Florence Nicolson

Adela Florence Nicolson was an English poet who wrote under the pseudonym Laurence Hope.- Biography :...

, became famous as the exotic poet of Indian verses, "Laurence Hope."

Novels

The following list is taken from A Companion to On-line & Off-line Literature.

• The Woman Who Didn't (1895; original title: Consummation; retitled by John Lane
  John Lane (publisher)
  -Biography:Originally from Devon, where he was born into a farming family, Lane moved to London already in his teens. While working as a clerk at the Railway Clearing House, he acquired knowledge as an autodidact....
  
   for his Keynote series as a response to Grant Allen's The Woman Who Did)
• Paula (1896)
• A Girl of the Klondike (1899)
• Anna Lombard
  Anna Lombard
  Anna Lombard is a New Woman novel by Annie Sophie Cory writing as Victoria Cross. First published in 1901, it is based on the idea that it takes a New Man as well to form a perfect union of the sexes.-Plot summary:...
  
  (1901)
• Six Chapters of a Man's Life (1903)
• To-morrow? (1904)
• The Religion of Evelyn Hastings (1905)
• Life of My Heart (1905)
• Six Women (1906)
• Life's Shop-Window (1907)
• Five Nights (1908)
• The Eternal Fires (1910)
• The Love of Kusuma (1910)
• Self and the Other (1911)
• The Life Sentence (1912)
• The Night of Temptation (1912)
• The Greater Law (aka Hilda Against The World) (1914)
• Daughters of Heaven (short stories, 1920)
• Over Life's Edge (1921)
• The Beating Heart (1924)
• Electric Love (1929)
• The Unconscious Sinner (aka The Innocent Sinner) (1931)
• A Husband's Holiday (1932)
• The Girl in the Studio (1934)
• Martha Brown, MP (1935)
• Jim (1937)

External links

• Anna Lombard
• To-morrow?
• Six Women
• Five Nights
• Daughters of Heaven
• The Woman Who Didn't